The Outstanding Balance of Morality
by Meresger
Summary: There's a new villain in town using old tricks, and when the mysterious thief brings about Storybrooke's latest plot-twist, a lie is discovered and an old enemy re-sworn to revenge unleashes a far worse threat. And is there really such a thing as an "Evil Twin"? DISCONTINUED. Please read the "Revised Edition" that is Season 6 compliant and still in progress.
1. The Prick and The Princess

**Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.**

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 **Title: The Outstanding Balance of Morality**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own** _ **Once Upon A Time**_ **. If I did, Adam & Eddy would be fired and picking up litter by the side of the highway.**

 **Summary: There's a new villain in town using old tricks, and when the mysterious thief brings about Storybrooke's latest plot-twist, a lie is discovered and an old enemy re-sworn to revenge unleashes a far worse threat. [Emma/Other (non-romance), Swanfire] (rated M for language)**

 **Genre: Family/Action/Romance/Adventure**

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 **The Outstanding Balance of Morality**

"True love, Miss Swan. The only magic powerful enough to transcend realms and break any curse."

\- Mr. Gold (1.22 "The Land Without Magic)

"See, the next time your lips touch Emma Swan's, all of her magic will be taken. Everything that makes her special, that makes her powerful, that makes her a threat will be gone."

\- Zelena to Hook (3.17 "The Jolly Roger")

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CHAPTER ONE

THE PRICK AND THE PRINCESS

At the prick of the needle, Storybrooke's sheriff cried out in startlement and stumbled a little before yanking free the hypodermic needle, it's old-timey metal plunger pushed in and what remained of the orangey-red liquid dripping onto the floor with a splatter of blood.

Just then, co-Sheriff David "Prince Charming" Nolan burst into the creepy mad scientist lair followed shortly by sometimes deputy and occasional Harbor Master Killian "Captain Hook" Jones who wheezed out, "Bloody bastard got away. Transmuted a manhole cover into some sort of portal."

"Is that?" David noticed the needle his daughter was holding while rubbing her backside. And an assortment of more needles filled with familiar liquid scattered on the table and floor around her.

Instead of getting an answer, Storybrooke's Savior cried out, dropping the needle and began to transmutate herself.

In retrospect, they probably shouldn't have kept Dr. Jekyll's dirty needle after Regina used it - or at least made sure it was destroyed after being used for the purposes of researching an antidote before Dr. Whale decided to _also_ recreate large batches of the original serum... though, to be fair, he did have good intentions for curing things like lycanthropy or allowing mermaids to remain fully human without fancy enchanted jewelry.

Still, given how good intentions always paved a path to Hell - or The Underworld - in Storybrooke, they probably should have cut their losses and known better than to mix magic with fringe science that had previously tried (and sort of succeeded) to raise the dead. Sadly, no one ever seemed to catch on and destroy the roots of the evils that continually and without fail came back to bite them in their asses.

This particular time it was that particular potion and the ass was that of Sheriff Swan's - literally - when in investigating the looting of Whale's lab she lock-picked her way into what used to be Any Given Sundae and then The Three Bears Day Spa (before the Storybrooke health department shut it down for its water temperature being just right for noro virus to thrive in) and while observing former mud baths and Jacuzzis turned into vats of percolating potions found herself propelled backward by the cloaked culprit and in the process a full hypodermic needle not only jabbed its way right through her very tight jeans but in being slammed up against the wall, the plunger had been pushed down, injecting its contents into her, well, _ass_.

And so it was that Storybrooke's latest victim of magical mayhem shuddered violently and began to glow, another Emma soon materializing with a translucent veiny sparkliness overlaying the original, features contorting and separating in what seemed to be a quite painful experience.

Standing by helpless to stop the transformation, Charming and Hook could only watch as the specter began freeing itself, nearly solidify into a corporeal doppleganger with a Seattle 1990s grunge fashion fetish and hipster glasses.

Both men drew swords to battle the potentially malevolent bespeckled duplicate, poised and ready to launch an attack... which, of course, wouldn't destroy the not-really-human entity, but it would least send it packing to reform Terminator style until they could get their hands on the aforementioned antidote and re-merge Emma with her potentially villainous double as Regina had been the year before.

When the glowing and separating subsided, the second Emma Swan did not try to murder the first or anyone else, much to their collective surprise. Instead, she instantly slumped unconscious, followed moments later by the confused Emma in jeans and leather.

* * *

Rumplestiltskin glared at the gaggle of do-gooders that had taken over his shop. The wards he'd once placed around the pawn shop no longer seemed to keep them out after Emma's barrier spell, no matter that it was long since shattered by Cora and Regina. At least the silent alarm still worked to alert him when her family of trespassing 'heroes' trampled all over his personal property.

"What have you lot done _now_?" Gold growled.

"It turns out Whale replicated Jekyll's serum, someone stole it, and Emma got injected in some sort of booby trap," answered Regina who'd poofed herself and Henry over after the call from David. "Our hospital thief appears to be an alchemist.

"I can only assume the serum was modified somehow. Considering these two," she gestured to Charming as well as Snow, who'd hurried over with cranky toddler in tow, "ripped Emmas darkness out, so I don't see how the original syrup would even work on her. We were hoping you could... run some tests. Alchemy isn't my strong-suit and I don't completely trust Zelena."

"No, you lacked the patience for it," Gold conceded. "And your sister's last attempt rewrote history with countless unknown possible alterations and possible compounding paradoxes that could ultimately result in the complete and utter destruction of reality."

It was clear none of them had considered that consequence so, Rumplestiltskin just moved on to the matter at hand, correcting Regina's assumption.

"Modifications aren't required. Just because one has been robbed of their own darkness doesn't mean they can't borrow it from another. Magic and nature both abhor imbalance. I'm sure Miss Swan picked up enough of it over the years by leeching onto murderers and rapists, such as yourselves," he nodded at Regina and Hook.

Regina flushed while Hook rolled his eyes and snarked, "You always have to be petty, don't you, Crocodile? We're all family here-"

"Family?" scoffed Gold. "Ah, yes, Emma said I was family and that she would fight for me when _you_ tried to murder me in front of my own son and grandson, but since then has chosen to damn me repeatedly, even using my wife as a pawn to blackmail me into her selfish, childish, tantrum of a demand to save your worthless life and, by her account, insisting I not attempt to change the future to save my son because it would be so very wrong to take away his dying a hero from him," he scoffed, amending, "Of course, my boy was actually a hero while all you've ever done is clean up your own filthy messes for the reward of a nice warm scabbard in which to sheath your diseased cutlass."

"Emma doesn't think I'm worthless," Hook growled, "and you're hardly a hero with all you've done to us and your so-called true love and second go at fatherhood. You're just jealous that everyone recognized that I'm one of the heroes now and have seen you for the scum you are!"

Rumplestiltskin snorted derisively. "Jealous? Scum? I think that would be the other way around, pirate. The Dark One always brings out the truth in one's blackened heart, and yours was to bitch and moan about _your_ so-called true love being nothing but an anchor holding you down, holding you back from your true self: a villain. I've just stop deluding myself that I like power and hurting those who try to hurt me, or just simply stand in the way of what I covet. As long as you keep drinking the do-gooder Kool Aid, dearie, you'll never truly be happy," he scoffed.

Then nodded to Emma's family with an added, "So why would I even want to be part of this disgustingly amoral family of self-righteous, hypocritical idiots? You can't stomach owning up to your darkness, any of you, that you love it, that it makes you stronger, that other people fearing you gives you power. Because they certainly don't respect you, not the joke you all are, playing the reformed mayor and the buddy cops and whatever it is," he waved a hand at Snow White, "you think you're actually instilling in your students that help them be anything more than mouth-breathing breeders of another generation of ignorant, superstitious arseholes."

Poking the unconscious Sheriff with his cane, Gold said, "I don't envy any of you. I pity you and how pathetic you are that you actually think this woman is a hero, your savior when she's nothing but a spoiled brat teenager who treats justice like it's a suggestion and all of you are the eternal exception to it, allowed to screw over everyone else in this town and be praised for cleaning up your shite.

"Well, I'm not one of your sheep, Charming," he told the Prince. "And I owe your family nothing. Your daughter fulfilled her role with my curse, and now that's the extent of our connection. Emma Swan may have birthed my grandson, but this sorry excuse for a savior," he belittled, "foresaked any sympathies from me after she let my boy die and remain that way while running to Hell for Baelfire's _deadbeat stepfather_ like a brainless school girl.

"Emma alone could have saved my son as the product of true love, but she let him die and he stayed dead, because heaven forbid any real life matter, even if it's an actual life, should complicate budding romance with a loathsome bastard who shot my innocent wife in the back and who now gets to carry a badge and gun just so Sheriff Swan doesn't have to go more than two minutes without being able to dry-hump her sick little addiction.

"I'm terribly sorry," Rumple concluded in a condescending tone, "but as far as I'm concerned, this woman is nothing but an emotionally dead and morally corrupt pirate's whore and whether she lives or dies because of her own stupidity - which I can only assume is half genetic and half syphilis eating her brain - is your problem, not mine.

"So all of you," he sneered, " _kindly get the fuck out of my shop_."

* * *

After getting the fuck out of Gold's pawn shop, everyone gathered at Storybrooke General where Dr. Whale had been their next best hope to understanding Jekyll's (possibly augmented) serum and why neither Emma nor her magically manifested doppleganger would wake up, no matter how many times Hook stuck his tongue down the former's throat and after Henry's failed forehead smooch, Regina zapped the bespeckled Emma with bolts of magic until her flannel dress began to smoke.

Henry had even tried to find answers in The Book, his magic quill refusing to pen anything to clarify what was going on beyond the point of the splitting serum taking effect... so the fifteen year old had now resigned himself to playing Pokemon GO in the waiting room.

Probably, Henry should have been more concerned about his mother being mysteriously unconscious, but he'd had so much crazy shit go down in his short life that he honestly couldn't muster the emotional investment between bullshit school work, bullshit Author writing, trying to have a bullshit social life, and bullshit hanging out with his grandfather and not-yet step dad in their perpetual frenemy bromance of trying to one-up each other in being the most dashing and important man in his birth mom's life.

It was really no contest at this point, which made David's enthusiasm kind of pathetic in Henry's opinion. Obviously, _he_ should have been Number One as Emma's _son_ , but since he had been out of the running since he was like twelve and only existed when Emma needed date night pep talks or he screwed something up but didn't even get punished for it just a lame-ass lecture, what hope did the dad she never knew have? Zilch.

His family was fucked up, Henry decided as he captured a Charmeleon from David's lap and Hook's patience, what minuscule amount he actual had, ran out.

"This is madness!" the pirate growled at Nurse Ratched behind the counter as Henry was trying to grab a Rattata from his chest hair. "I demand to see Emma."

"Which one?" the nurse asked, tone utterly bored and unfazed by the pirate's anger.

"The real one, you bint! The woman I am going to marry. You bloody well know which one I mean!"

A nun passed by with a cart of flowers and Henry snatched a Vileplume, wondering not for the first time if those pink flowers from Camelot were also evil.

"I'll page Dr. Whale and see if he has an update," Ratched blandly responded but made no move to actually do that.

"Grrrrrrrrrr! Who were you in your other life!?" Hook demanded.

"That's for me to know and none of you to ever find out," she quipped. "Now sit your faux leather-clad pretty but otherwise completely useless butt down and _wait_ before I have security escort you out, Mr. Jones."

"That's Deputy or Captian Jones to you! I wouldn't be caught dead in faux leather! And you can't tell me what to do! I am the law in this town, woman!"

"I only recognize law enforcement who have undergone state-mandated training and are licensed to carry a fire arm, never mind drive a car," Ratched responded snootily while flipping through forms. "And since the only one here, corrupt as she may be, is unconscious or dead and you two are just an idiot blood relation and an idiot bootycall playing cops and robbers to compare your penis size while diddling with the siren rather than doing anything beneficial for this community, I reserve my right to call your bullshit, _Deputy Captain Chlamydia_ , and _issue my own psychiatric hold on all of you_."

"Wha-I don't-I've never had _Chlamydia!_ You take that back!" Hook insisted.

"It says right here that you did," Ratched gestured to a chart. "When you were admitted after that car accident, you had significant seepage."

"SHUT UP, YOU BINT!"

"Gross," Henry groaned while everyone else looked disgusted.

"Which is the only reason," drawled Ratched at the teen, "that I didn't whack your bony backside for stealing those condoms from the clinic last week. Between this walking petrii dish as a role model, your lazy-ass birth mother who can't be bothered to get her lovers checked out before spreading her legs, your judgementally questionable adoptive mother who banged a forest vagrant in a crypt covered in mold and rotting-corpse-seepage polluted ground water, your grandfather who had an extramarital affair and wasn't using condoms given his fake wife thinking she was pregnant and his previously prude of a mistress skipping in here to get the strongest dose birth control pills available, which she stopped taking to have a do-over after failing with the first kid and to start her creepy-as-fuck-and-insulting-to-modern-feminists-everywhere Overly Fertile Princesses Club that celebrates the cliché happy ending of a submissive little twit with a tiara and a baby-stretched vag, it was a relief that you even remotely understand safe sex."

"Hey, don't talk about my daughter that way!" Snow exclaimed. "Or my vagina!"

"You _what_!?" Regina howled at Henry.

"I just want to be prepared like she said!" Henry defended. "I don't want to get a bunch of venereal diseases like Mom! Or have a kid when I'm still a kid _like mom_! I'm not ready for that. Plus, Violet would join the Overly Fertile Princesses Club and I'd have to go to all those stupid dinner parties with those stupid princesses and their stupid princes. Seriously, like ninety percent of them must have eaten paint chips as kids or something!"

"We're not creepy and they're not dumb!" Snow harumped, which received a snort from Hook, an eye-roll from Regina, and David suddenly deciding to join the previous conversation.

"Did you say Emma has _VD_? As in-"

"Her vagina has seen more swabbing than the deck of the _Jolly Roger_ ," snarked Nurse Ratched.

"But... but..." Snow stammered.

"How can you possibly be surprised?" snorted Regina. "Besides just looking at what she's bedding, you never looked in her medicine cabinet?"

"I... I thought that was cold sore medicine."

"I can't believe you!" David growled at the pirate. "You gave my daughter your whore diseases!"

"It's not my fault, mate!" Hook huffed. "I finished the whole bloody bottle of pills Whale gave me even after Pan tossed us back to The Enchanted Forest when I pledged myself to celibacy until I could be reunited with my one true love. How was I to know I had some resistant strains?"

"That's why you get your junk tested again before even touching my daughter!" David snapped, throwing Hook up against a wall.

Snow sighed. "David, please, you can beat him up later in the parking lot."

"What!? Hey!" Hook huffed. "This isn't my fault! Emma knows it! She wouldn't have agreed to be my wife otherwise. She knows my love for her is pure even if my loins have plundered many an unclean-"

"Spare me the nauseating fake romance, you diseased manwhore," Regina cut him off, "and sit your unclean ass down before your dick falling off from the slutty barmaids you plundered in between drunk raping and infecting innocent damsels who popped out generations of congenital syphilis mental defectives is the least of your concerns," she snapped.

"I have not-"

"Please, during one of your blackout drunk stupors I bled you all over a map just to make sure Henry never touches one of your bastard decedents."

Unnerved, Hook sat down and demanded, "You didn't... tell her... did you?"

"About how many imbecile stepchildren and grandchildren and great-grandchildren she has running around this town thanks to your wandering dick over the past three hundred years? If she can't figure that out on her own, frankly, she deserves you."

"I thought you were Emma's friend," muttered Snow.

Regina snorted and told her, "I was the Evil Queen. If I didn't consider the two of you friends, I wouldn't have any. I mean, honestly, I let my lover's rapist who murdered my son's father move in with me, I was so desperate for companionship. And as pathetic as I admit that is, that _you're_ happy to be friends with a former mass murderer who tried to kill your family doesn't exactly say a great deal for your critical thinking skills where friendship is involved. Your happily welcoming Captain Chlamydia into the family says even less."

Snow and David scowled and Hook glared at Regina before taking a seat next to Henry, closer than any normal person would, and patted him on the back.

"Don't worry, lad, whatever happens, you've still got me. Your mum and I might not be married, but she considers me family no matter what your other mum says and I'll look after you right and proper."

Henry rolled his eyes and sarcastically (not that Hook noticed) responded, "Great, thanks. That means a lot."

Everyone else lapsed into boredom and throwing nasty looks at Nurse Ratched for several minutes, until...

Dr. Whale returned to the waiting room suddenly and declared, "Congratulations, it's twins!"

"Funny," sighed Regina.

David jumped to his feet. "How is Emma? Is she awake yet? Do you know if anything was done to the potion? Is her duplicate dangerous? Can they be reemerged? Can we-"

"Why didn't my true love's kiss awaken her?" Hook butted in. "It must be a poison rather than curse then, yes? Because true love is the rarest and most powerful-"

"Bullshit of all. Yes I know," groaned Whale. "You all are so delusional basing your entire philosophy on a concept that's the equivalent of a Tinder hook-up between a sexual predator and slutty teenager. True love means absolutely nothing if it's entirely based on belief and feeling something to be true. I've heard less bullshit feeling-based policies from than son of an orangutan who thinks he's the best at everything when he's really just a hypocritical loser."

"He seems like a fine chap to me," said Hook.

"You mean you actually watch more than old pirate movies and pirate-movie-based porn?" scoffed Regina.

Whale continued, "Anyway, Emma is fine. She is awake. The serum was slightly modified but presents no danger to her or her sister's health."

"I'm sorry," Regina cut in, " _what_? Her _sister_?"

"That's right. _Her identical twin sister_ ," Whale said.

"WHAT!?" gasped everyone.

"Technically, her mirror twin," explained the doctor, "as seems to be the case with this sort of hereditary situation in your world, at least from the books I studied while trying to figure out the mess of Jekyll and Hyde. You didn't notice that after they split they are mirror versions of one another?"

Everyone exchanged a look that signified they had not.

"Hmm, well, I suspect a magical glamourie of some sort was probably masking this or you'd have noticed and Emma's magic, probably like the whole Dark One bit, Savior magic wanting to protect itself from interference - even if it had already been hijacked and was being used to essentially protect a Curse that had been thrown in reverse, in a matter of speaking, and then throw in Zelena's magic-siphoning kiss curse... it's really a clusterfuck of magical manipulations that put your daughters in this situation."

"Wait... we... really-"

"have... _two daughters_?" croaked out Snow and Charming.

Giving the pair a look that didn't say much for his thoughts on their intelligence, Whale confirmed, "Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Two babies who shared one physical body thanks to magic: Emma who has ill-gained magical powers and came to Storybrooke and broke the Curse, and the one you've been calling Emma for the past few years who really isn't and screwed up your meet-cute in the past and used that magic mostly to benefit herself in between sessions with Archie to rant about being the Savior interfering with her pirate-smooching time, which was the rest of the time in the back booth at Granny's. I had to put out a public health warning about that booth lest someone get herpes from the condiment bottles. Or syphilis. Or gonorrhea... not to mention crabs, and not the kind that make a good deep fried sandwich with a side of slaw."

"I hate this bloody hospital!" Hook growled.

"But how," Snow asked, "I mean... I never knew... I was really carrying twins?"

"It had to be the spell The Apprentice cast on Embryo Emma to remove her darkness," stated Whale. "It's the only thing that explains the unusual absorption rather than, well, the usual outcome."

"Gold was right," groaned Regina. "Magic abhors imbalance. That curse took away Emma's natural predisposition to make her own selfish choices - her darkness - which was also the equivalent of having too much goodness. I assumed she found balance in life by associating with criminals, and I suppose that was part of it, but the other half came from her sister."

"Yes, exactly," nodded Whale. "Lacking in darkness, Emma's magic absorbed her sister into herself to try and restore as much balance to her magic as possible, which effectively also gave her more than the natural amount of light potential, although not as much as it would with regular twins since her sister is, after all, an Evil Twin, who clearly took advantage of Zelena's magic-sucking spell to switch dominance and hijack her sister's magical ability. Quite clever, really, though it would seem also subconscious, or if it was conscious, any dual _full_ consciousness of being separate beings on either's part has been erased by the splitting, and probably for good measure as Dr. Hopper says that would be quite psychologically traumatic, and just the awareness of having behaved in ways contrary to their dispositions is hard enough to reconcile with-"

"I'm sorry," Regina cut in, "but did you say _'Evil Twin_ '?"

"Yes, that's right. Emma's sister, let's call her 'Bella'."

"Bella?" asked Hook, brows furrowed.

"Yes, you know, Bella Swan. _Twilight_?" Whale stated to blank stares. "Emma and her sister are like... _Harry Potter_ and _Twilight_ ," he explained. "As the great Maine philosopher Stephen King said, 'one is about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity. The other is all about the importance of having a boyfriend.' One is The Savior. The other is a skank obsessed with her centuries old yet unnatural youthful, pale, leather-clad, emotionally-and-physically-isolating-from-her-family-and-also-undead boyfriend. Throw in some blood sucking and a not-gay werewolf and you two," he scoffed at Hook, "are a real life rip-off of that nauseating teen romance played by a syphilitic pirate and a thirty something woman acting like a dumb, slutty teenager. Which, from what I have read, is one of the hallmarks of Evil Twin Syndrome. Sexual promiscuity compounded by adolescent, narcissistic behavior."

"Hold on," interjected David. "If Emma has an 'Evil Twin' does that mean-"

"Your brother was one? Obviously," nodded Whale. "He was hereditarily predisposed toward evil behavior due to a blood magic curse upon your family known as 'Imago tenebrarum', which roughly translates to 'Mirror of Darkness'. You can thank Belle for finding that one. Or not. I understand you all mostly ignore her.

"She's quite put out that you left her to remain dead in The Underworld while trying to rescue a man who tried to murder her, you know," Whale told them, "even if she did briefly consider him a friend whens he was going through an unfortunate period of depression, anxiety, and extremly poor decision making stemming from a poor integration of her late-activated curse identity... according to Dr. Hopper, anyway. We trade trade secrets on poker night."

"And then blab them to everyone?" Regina snarked.

"Sometimes," Whale confirmed with a shrug. "But she has been a pretty shitty wife, banishing her husband on the word of a pirate, doing nothing to help with his PTSD from being tortured in a cage for a year, deciding somehow that she was no longer truly in love with him at a particular moment-which near as I can tell, completely violates that magical premise you base so many of your stupid decisions on, unless it really is ninety-nine percent belief, which I suppose is the only way to explain how a psychotic murderer-slash-rapist witch was able to true love kiss back into beating the heart of a psychotic megalomaniacal murderer-slash -rapist god after hugging it out sisterhood style sent to Heaven a sociopathic mass murder-slash-daughter-of-an-abusive-alcoholic with zero remorse for her atrocities that included magically abusing her youngest daughter and intentionally sending her eldest daughter back to be physically abused by a drunken prick. Honestly, you all are a bunch of selfish pricks with the critical thinking skills of brain-damaged toddlers, so it's no wonder you've got Evil Twins in your gene pool."

"That's rather harsh, mate," grumbled Hook.

"Really? Because from where I'm standing," Whale huffed, "you spent three centuries consumed with true love inspired vengeance, met a hot girl who once banged your stepson you sold to a demon out of spite, and decided 'Milah who?' to get into her pants. That poor woman got thrown into some eternal damnation estuary in the process of being blackmailed into helping save your wart-riddled dick, and instead of lamenting her tragic sacrifice, you made out with your new younger, tighter vagina at the funeral of a man who also got murdered because you and Bella were a couple of self-centered douchbags. No sane woman, or woman with two brain cells still firing," he scoffed in the direction of Snow and Regina, "would not see complete and utter apathy toward the horrible re-murdering of one's previous true love as a world-record-sized red flag."

"To be fair, I never supported those two," Regina harumphed. "Snow, though, was trying to get Emma engaged and pregnant on their first date."

"I was not!"

"You kind of were," groaned David.

"Perhaps we should schedule you for an MRI," Whale considered. "You've suffered more concussions than a football player in your lifetime from what I understand. You might have irreversible brain damage that's hampering your reasoning ability."

"Yes, yes, Snow is an idiot," Regina drawled, "tell us something we don't know. Get back to this Evil Twin thing. I thought the Good Twins never survived."

"Aye," nodded Hook.. "I've heard about that. Nasty business it can be."

"It gives new meaning to 'Vanishing Twin Syndrome' for sure," confirmed Whale. "The curse consumes the Good Twin in the same way as rarely in nature a fraternal twin will fuse with its brother or sister early in embryonic development such that a few of those cells with remain present as, say, a kidney or even blood cells that will lead to confusing DNA results. Although, from what I understand, it usually happens later in gestation was is quite painful and horrible and often leads to the death of the mother and both offspring. In the case that the Evil Twin does survive, usually some magical treatment was used to try and spare the mother's life and often the Evil Twin was then killed to prevent spreading the curse to another generation. And, you know, them being evil and growing up to do horrible things in general.

"I can only assume David has some sort of mutation that in combination with magical help allowed him and his mother both to survive, along with his Evil Twin."

"That gypsy charm!" Snow remembered. "Your mother gave it to me as she was dying. She said it was just supposed to tell the sex of our first born."

"Well, would you have still married him," snorted Regina, "if she told you it was to spare your life as one of your twin children possibly consumed the other in your womb? And if both survived, one would be an evil little shit you'd feel compelled and guilt-ridden to give up to the Dark One to spare it from murdering its good twin in the crib?"

"I... I don't know," Snow admitted while also realizing, "She tricked me into drinking that water! How... why would she do that!?"

"Because all parents in the Enchanted Forest are stupid, selfish assholes," stated Whale matter-of-factly. "Now. As I was saying, David and his brother are an unusual case. So are Emma and her sister. You could say that the spell the Apprentice cast resulted in a Vanishing Twin case turning into a Parasitic Twin case, but instead of additional physical features it presented in additional magic and/or behavioral features due to the shared consciousness of the two twins, one whose physical form remained intact but was suppressed or hidden by magic. You might say they battled for dominance like Spock's Vulcan and Human side, but the Savior magic kept Emma on the Human side for the majority of her life."

"Aren't Vulcans the more logical, though?" asked Henry.

"Well, if you truly follow _Star Trek_ mythology through to the prequel series," Whale countered, "Vulcans are actually paranoid assholes who care a lot more about spying on and painting themselves as superior to other alien races than they then do about logic and religion. They just used that Surak fellow and his reformation as the perfect cover to seem like alien Buddhists.

"And, yes," the doctor sighed, "I realize knowing all of that as well as anything about _Twilight_ reveals that I am a loser with no social life, but that's all your faults for trapping me in a world I hate full of people from other worlds that I hate. So there!"

Whale paused to think, the asked, "Where was I?"

"Explaining Emma's dual nature," said Regina, sounding a bit bored already.

"Ah, yes," Whale nodded. "Also, Evil Twins, like Vulcans, don't process alcohol well. So, Bella Swan chumming around with a barely functional alcoholic when her sister was already - perhaps on _Bella's_ influence - prone toward drinking when emotional due to hereditary alcoholism didn't help curb her sociopathic tendencies."

"Hey! I am fully functional!' argued Hook. "In all ways!'

"Gross," groaned Henry.

"Emma is an alcoholic?" sputtered Snow.

Crossing her arms, Regina gave the younger woman a 'seriously' look and stated, "Exactly what were you doing every time we met at your apartment and she had her personal walking liquor store pour out his flask into her cup of coffee - the coffee she poured into it after pouring your hot chocolate 'with cinnamon' down the sink - or we met at her place and she was just straight up day drinking hard liquor?"

"I...I... why didn't you say anything!?" Snow croaked out, distraught and Regina shrugged.

"About the drinking? It was blatantly obvious and not my business. I probably drink three too many glasses of wine a day."

"More than one is too many," Whale told her.

"See?"

"She was really pouring out my hot cocoa?" Snow sniffed. "But she loved that. We bonded over that."

"Well, you and your firstborn bonded over it," shrugged Whale. "You and your second born bonded over Cuban coffee and lies."

Snow gave Regina an accusing look.

"What? Was that supposed to be a big flashing sign that Emma was body-snatched?" the former Evil Queen grumbled "I just thought Emma was only pretending to like the stuff for Henry's benefit when she first got here and didn't know how to break it to you all that she hates the stuff and probably told him when they were living together in New York so it was old news and if you cared you'd ask her and if I said anything you'd snark at me to mind my own business. It's not like I lived with her for five months or anything."

Snow scowled.

"Okay, so let me get this straight," Henry interjected, "Emma was in charge until Zelena took her magic so Bella took over control, which mean's Hook's arm candy who's been criminally neglecting me since my uncle's coronation is actually my aunt?"

"Exactly," Whale nodded.

Henry jumped up and threw a fist in the air, then told Hook, "Suck it, pirate scum! My mom isn't really a slut! And you'll never be my step dad!"

Hook harumphed and crossed his arms while responding, "Yes, well, I never wanted to be your step dad, you big-nosed nerdy bookworm brat with an unnatural scarf fetish."

"At least my dick doesn't seep puss!" Henry retorted.

Hook flipped him off.

"David, this is all our fault," Snow moaned. "We were going to have twins! That's what those visions meant! We caused this!"

"Yep, all your fault," nodded Whale, "but also, if it makes you feel better, if not for your stupid spell, you probably wouldn't have gone into labor early - since Evil Twin Syndrome causes premature labor due to the attempted twin-killing - so you'd have ended up in this world giving birth to two brats, one of them evil that would have spent her childhood on welfare and food stamps trying to kill her sister, assuming Social Services didn't take one or both of them away from you, since you'd have had no identification, no money, no education, and no job skills, in which case, with the luck your family has, Bella would have been raised up by Regina or that creepy ice bitch to murder your entire family.

"As it is," he shrugged, "being subverted by her sister for thirty years, Bella wasn't able to hone her psychotic tendencies to their full capacity at puberty with the hormone changes that alter brain chemistry and had to settle for a delayed and rather pathetic attempt at evil puberty even with the help of the Dark One. As such, Bella is less of an 'Evil Twin' at this point as she is just a selfish jerk with a sex and rum addiction. Really,, you lucked out with your selfish, bad parenting decision and it turned out for the best, probably. I mean, on the other hand, Bella could have turned out like Zelena. She's one of the worst cases of Evil Twin I have ever seen."

" _Zelena_ is an Evil Twin? You never thought to mention _that_ before!?" Regina growled.

"Doctor-patient confidentiality?" shrugged Whale. "Honestly, I hate all of you and dealing with your bullshit. Knowing that green freak has a hereditary mental disorder would have made you fawn over her and excuse away all of her horrible crimes with even more self-righteously misguided passion. I mean, I'm a fucking _necromancer_ , and I think you lot are a bunch of morally bankrupt assholes."

The Doctor picked at a hangnail and continued, "As I was about to say before that rude interruption, even though Robin is a Good Twin, like most Good Twins, she carries the Evil Twin gene as well, so unless a cure is found, when she is older, something will have to be done to ensure she doesn't pop one out."

"Wait... how is she the Good Twin?" asked Regina.

"Same as Henry. Her Evil Twin was self-aborted. In his case that might have been due to Emma's lack of her own darkness for the curse to latch onto or just have been due to his mother already harboring her sister and that world's magic being unable to sustain both spells. Or maybe that believer heart magic, which frankly makes zero sense to me and seems fairly stupid was the cause. In Robin's case, if Dark Bella Swan hadn't given Zelena those onion rings, the poor brat would have been magically eaten by her sister and thus saved from being raised by a certifiably insane woman and her step family of idiots and psychopaths which will no doubt result in her either becoming a rapist or falling in love with a rapist. But, long medical explanation short, since that enchantment only accelerated the gestation of the Good Twin as the light one would attract the Dark One magic to snuff out such pure innocence, Robin's Evil Twin was miscarried at about twelve weeks during her birth."

"So..." Hook glanced between Regina and David before asking, "if Zelena was an Evil Twin and Regina here is her sister, does that mean-?"

"I am not _that_ evil!" Regina snapped.

"You were pretty evil," Whale stated, "but not due to a curse. Zelena got it from her father. It's far more commonly passed down by males, what with The Enchanted Forest and it's arcane attitudes toward women being pretty much a haven for rapists. It seems that your mother's predisposition toward murder and raping was just regular inherited sociopathy amplified by an abusive childhood and in your case child-bride marriage to an old pervert who left you locked up in a castle to be tormented by the Dark One - and, of course, your mother removed her heart which surely made her a cold bitch and would have probably caused you severe subconscious emotional trauma as fetuses and newborns find comfort in their mothers heartbeat, which would not have existed in The Enchanted Forest while heartless, causing you to grow from conception without the foundational auditory bonding mechanism. Honestly, I don't know how you forgave that woman. She's ruined your for life. Probably fucked up your brain chemistry during development because of that - which you botched even more with a severe hormone imbalance caused by the sterility potion _your mother_ tricked you into drinking while pretending she actually cared about you.

"Which reminds me, you should make an appointment to check your hormone levels and see if any adjustments should be made. Just because having ruined ovaries due to magic has kept you youthful long after most women would be suffering through menopause and turning into ugly old crones, doesn't mean you shouldn't keep on top of things."

"You really give less of a shit about doctor-patient confidentiality than Hopper, don't you?" Regina snarled.

"Not a bit. Prince Charming had a third nipple removed, Snow White really should think about bleaching her Wookie ass situation that makes her annual vaginal exams highly unpleasant, and from my examination of the Lost Boys, it seems likely that your son's unnatural pixie-dust-accelerated puberty has stunted his penis size."

"Awe, that's a shame, lad!" tittered Hook. "Already not having much to work with, I'd imagine."

"Actually," said Whale, "Henry's paternal line is predisposed to being above average. His father, even with his own presumed pixie-dust-accelerated puberty, was well endowed enough not to be embarrassed. Rather a shame, though. Both could have had award-winning careers as a porn actor and banged more ladies than you. Now Henry will still suffer the usual white male embarrassment in the locker room. Actually, this town is so ethnically un-diverse that he probably has a better chance of being struck by lightning than standing pantless next to a black penis, so-"

"Stop talking about my penis!" moaned Henry.

"It's all right, Henry," David reassured him. "Size really doesn't matter."

Regina, Snow, and Nurse Ratched snorted.

"Aaaaaaaaaaanyway," Whale continued, "where was I? Oh, right, I kept Robin's malformed Evil Twin in a jar in my office. If you'd like to see-"

"NO!" everyone exclaimed, horrified and disgusted.

Shrugging again, not remotely bothered by the offended looks, Whale scoffed, "Your loss. It's pretty cool."

"Can we see our... daughters?" asked Snow.

"Sure, why not? Just be aware that Bella will be even less inhibited. Try to encourage good behavior with rewards, like you would be a bad-tempered dog. But by 'rewards' I don't mean make-out time with Captain Douchebag here as that clearly leads to bad decisions like covering up cold-blooded, racist homicide."

"I was cursed! And I am not racist!" Hook exclaimed. "I may be a lot of horrible things, but I am not racist. My not caring that I offered that wizard has nothing to do with race. I generally don't care about any of the wankers I've bumped off."

"Lovely," sighed Regina.

"Like you care," argued Hook.

"Neither of you care," Whale told them. "You're both sociopaths. At least this one," he gestured to Regina, "has been trying to be a high functioning one using her lack of empathy to help defeat the threats against this town instead of sticking with selfish asshole."

Hook glared and Regina smirked.

"Anyway," continued Whale, turning back to Snow and Charming, "Be aware that one of your daughters is a psychological mess after being freed of her sister's skank-o-rama freedom tour and the other is a selfish, amoral slut who probably only suffered even the slightest moral crisis because of her sister and is otherwise incapable of properly experiencing empathy due to her affliction which is essentially entirely your fault for not getting tested for MTDs before doing the self-righteous heroes with two backs."

Whale then dropped his stethoscope like a microphone, declared, "Whale out!" and strode off down the hall.

"He's gotten bloody weird since bleaching his hair," muttered Hook.

"At least it's all his," snarked Henry. "I know you keep your magic rogain shit behind Aunt Skanky's herpes meds."

David gave Hook a two-fingered eye threat. "Parking lot, _mate_."

* * *

AN: The title is taken from the words of immunologist Peter Medawar who wrote about a particular case of human chimerism in _The Uniqueness of the Individual_ , "There is no telling how long Mrs. McK will remain a chimera, but she has now been so for twenty-eight years; probably, in the long run her twin brother's red blood cells will slowly disappear, and so pay back the still outstanding balance of his mortality." He was writing about a woman who had absorbed her twin early in their gestation and so still had his tissue in her body. Chimerism is rare, but it does happen.

AN2: I started this story when PokemonGO was the new craze. A description of the Rattata says: "It is not picky about where it lives—it will make its nest anywhere." While the Vileplume's "toxic pollen triggers atrocious allergy attacks. That's why it is advisable never to approach any attractive flowers in a jungle, however pretty they may be." Lastly, MTDs = magically transmitted diseases. Duh!

AN3: As for Whale's geeking out on _Twilight_ , I only ever saw some of the first movie when it was on HBO and turned it off because it was so very very very bad. Someone posted King's quote about _Twilight_ and _Harry Potter_ on Twitter and I had to use it.

AN4: On _Star Trek_ , happy 50th! I got to reading all the "top episode" lists and other factoids about it, and how _Enterprise_ revealed, or at least heavily hinted, that Vulcans are actually self-centered jerks pretending to be devout pacifists. I was never a Trekkie, but along with the movies I have seen TOS, TNG, and a couple of episodes of DS9 and _Voyager_. With a local station now showing _Star Trek_ series, I happened upon "Q Who?" today. If only Q would show in Storybrooke and reveal that the past three seasons were all one of his illusions meant to teach Emma a lesson.

Next up: Breaking the news to Savior Swan and Skanky Swan.


	2. Mirror Mirror

**Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.**

* * *

CHAPTER TWO

MIRROR MIRROR

"Stupid magic," Emma grumbled, glaring at her Jell-O. "Stupid Hook."

The door opened and she looked up, expecting Whale again, or maybe Archie, but instead it was her mother and son.

"Mom!" Henry exclaimed, enveloping her in a hug that took Emma off guard.

"Hey... Kid," she gasped out, hugging him back tightly. She'd missed his hugs. He didn't hug like that anymore... and 'she' hadn't given him much reason to hug her for quite some time.

It was still hard working her mind around that, all the things Emma did that wasn't really her and had felt weird and wrong when she was doing them, but couldn't stop herself.

"How do you feel?" asked Snow, pulling up a chair.

"Well, I could go for a grilled cheese and fries instead of this crappy hospital food. And maybe a hot chocolate with cinnamon. Other than that, Dr. Whale said that potion didn't do any long-term damage, apart from the whole-"

"Having a twin sister thing," sighed Snow and Emma grimaced.

"Yeah, Whale explained everything and then Archie did a psyche evaluation," snorted Emma with a role of her eyes. "Not sure I trust Jimminy Cricket's Curse-acquired psychoanalysis skills when he didn't have me committed or put on anti-psychotics after I'd obviously suffered a sudden and severe personality change."

There was an obvious accusation in her tone and not quite meeting Snow or Henry's eyes and her mother pursed her lips tightly before beginning, "Emma, we're sorry."

"How?" Emma asked, confused and a bit embittered. "How did you not know something was wrong?"

"We _did_ notice that you were different," Snow conceded, "but we didn't know all of what happened in your past, like how you became a bounty hunter or your friendship with Lily and that mess with Ingrid. We didn't know _you_ as well as we should have, enough to really judge what was you and what was... well... you pretending to be something, to be what we wanted or expected. Which maybe isn't a good excuse. But... it just seemed like you finally felt comfortable enough to be yourself."

"Dressing like Sandra Dee and dating a rapist?"

"I happened to like that dress," Snow defended, sighing a little, "but as for Hook... your father and I felt as though we hadn't been supportive enough or understanding enough of your... complicated relationship with Neal, and you were falling in love again, and it was maybe an easier love without that past history, and we just wanted you to have an easier time of it than before, and than we did. It's what every parent wants for their children, even if it wasn't with the particular man we'd have chosen for any child of ours. You seemed happy. A bit, well, self-absorbed, but at least trusting us with your flaws.. It felt like you were finally letting us know you, and I suppose that led us to be accepting and encouraging of some of your-your _sister's_ more self-destructive choices."

"Which were most of her choices," scoffed Emma before responding, "I'm not saying that I'm not angry, but I'm sorry I didn't let you guys get to know me better. I kept a lot of secrets, worried you'd be disappointed in me."

"Seems to be a nasty habit in this family," sighed Snow. "If we'd _all_ been more honest in the beginning, things would be different. But all we can do is try to move forward from here, together, as a family."

"Not sure I'm ready for that with my sister," Emma argued, shaking her head. "Cursed to be a bitch or not, she treated my kid like crap. She took him to The Underworld to save her homicidal boyfriend who'd been attempting to kill Henry, and even when he wasn't, is either teaching Henry awful lessons or trying to destroy his self-esteem, often right in front of her! That's hard to forgive."

"No one is saying you have to, Emma. Just... try to understand her, that's all," Snow encouraged.

"I'm just glad to have you back," Henry told his mom. "And, you know, know that my mom isn't actually a pirate-loving skank."

" _You_ really thought I was a skank?"

"Well, yeah, pretty much everyone but Hook thinks you two are nasty," he groaned, wrinkling his nose. "I mean, sure, we all pretend to like him 'cause you liked him,, and Grandma and Grandpa were like: 'we have to support true love even if we don't always understand the form it comes in, Henry'. But, yeah, none of us really like Hook or liked how he changed you. But since he didn't really change you, you just got body-swapped with my skanky aunt, it's cool. At least she's only murdered a couple of people instead of full-on genocide of an entire species like Uncle James."

"True, I guess," snorted Emma even as she shuddered at the memories of the unheroic things her sister had done and the lack of remorse she'd felt for killing Cruella (self-defense, sort of, but still) and covering up for Hook killing Merlin (as the Dark One, but even then not a lick of guilt afterward). Whale and Archie were right that her twin was seriously empathy and morally challenged, and it was a huge relief now to know she hadn't been turning into a psychopath as side-effect of having her darkness pulled out, being the Dark One, or just some savior-related burn-out.

"Things'd be a lot easier though if I'd never saved Hook's stupid macho ass from needing to make me into a damsel in need of saving and just let him drown..."

"You're the Savior," shrugged Henry. "You're compelled to save even jerks who don't deserve it,. Couple that with your sister totally wanting to drop her panties for that perv..."

"Henry!" Snow chided.

"What? I'm not ten anymore! And it's not like Hook didn't admit multiple times that was his primary reason for stalking Mom. He just lucked out that Zelena's curse got her swapped with a skany and morally bankrupt version of Mom who was totally into his rapey charms."

"Yeah, she really is into that," agreed Emma. "I didn't stand a chance when I lost my magic, conflicted as I was about staying or leaving. Obviously she wasn't conflicted. She wanted Hook. She wanted control. She got it. And I got to basically be her with occasional moments of feeling like a horrible person. Like when Robin died, and you," she nodded to her mother, "said that nothing was my fault, "which is technically true. But it was my sister's fault. What she did was horrible and wrong on so many levels and the worst sort of hypocrisy besides..

"When she went back in time," Emma continued, "she actually told Rumplestiltskin not to save Neal because taking away his dying a hero from him was wrong. But then a few weeks later she goes to Hell because who cares if Hook wanted to die a hero, she couldn't live without him which is somehow some super healthy manifestation of love at its best? Beside the fact that Hook _didn't_ die a hero even if everyone said so, because he was cleaning up his own mess so he could go out in narcissistic blaze of glory and make everything about him as usual, that's absolute bullshit! My sister is a selfish bitch who ruined lives, mine included!"

"I'm sure she wasn't doing it to spite you," insisted Snow a bit meekly. "And I just didn't want you to lose yourself in grief and guilt the way Regina did after Daniel's death."

"Well, I didn't. I lost myself in my sister's complete and utter lack of it," Emma snapped. "And now... now I look back at my life and there are all these moments when I made selfish choices or just didn't give a shit and then later regretted them and didn't know why I did those things, and I know it was her weird evil cursed darkness. It was that darkness that got Cleo killed. It was that darkness that made me believe I couldn't be a mom, so then I felt like I couldn't make myself a better person, or why would I have made that choice? And now, thanks to her, I barely got the chance to try to be better," she angrily sniffed.

"You did more good in the few months you were here in Storybrooke than Aunt Bella's done in years," Henry told her. "And I bet the few good things she has done, that was your light fighting against her cursed evil darkness. You kept her from being a complete asshole and maybe some of that's rubbed off."

* * *

"Grilled cheese, onion rings, and coffee with two shots of _espresso_ for my Swan Princess," Hook announced, setting the meal on his lover's bed tray with a wink that said only one of the shots was actually espresso, the other from his flask.

"Awesome, you're the best, baby!" (Not)Emma cooed.

David tried not to vomit as the pair kissed longer than was really appropriate with someone else in the room.

"So... this sister thing," (Not)Emma said after a gulp of rummed-up coffee. "You know, it explains a lot. It's no wonder it was just felt so _liberating_ when we got dropped into the past. It was like... how had I been such a terrified goody-goody desperate to be liked? I felt transformed into a _realier_ me! Still had that pesky 'conscience' trying to ruin my fun, derail my goals, but I got them anyway."

"Aye, you did, luv," agreed Hook. "Finally stopped resisting my charms and gave in to true love."

"My fool of a sister," (Not)Emma rolled her eyes. "Well, her loss. I suppose I owe Zelena a 'thank you' for giving me the chance to get free and find true love. At least I wasn't too terrified of it to grab onto it - though it was a hell of a fight at first against that inner voice, which obviously was my sister. I mean, being the Dark One and my biggest fear was moving in with the guy I love? What kind of bullshit is that? But it was like an inner battle against my sister, so I get that. She obviously hates Killian and is still pining for her dead ex."

"Aye, tragic," said Hook. "Still not sure what she ever saw in Baelfire, so I suppose it's actually a relief that was your sister even if it means my seduction was working on more of a subconscious level and had no effect on her. Really, it's even more romantic," he considered, smiling. "My charms were able to help draw out this lovely lass and finally set her free!"

"Yes, exactly," cooed (Not)Emma , batting her eyes.

 _And imprison your sister in your place_ , David thought but didn't say as he looked away and focused on the TV in the corner while the two made out again. An old episode of _Star Trek_ was on and a goteed-for-some-reason Spock was talking with a bicep-flexing Kirk. He'd never actually watched the show other than vague Dark Curse-given memories...

"Also," Hook mused after pulling away, "I suppose it does erase any scruples over the whole mess of having been with Baelfire's mother, which some apparently find distasteful."

"Yes, I suppose that is a relief," grumbled David, turning back to the couple, pretty sure Hook had zero scruples.

"So, when do I get sprung from this joint?" (Not)Emma asked after finishing her sandwich. "I've got night patrol after this family dinner thing - we still doing that? - and I need to fill up the squad car's tank."

"Aye, can't forget night patrol," nodded Hook with a leering look.

David massaged his temples, trying to remember when Hook had grown on him enough to let him join in law enforcement activities on an official basis. The damn pirate really was like a syphilis infection of the brain!

"I'm going to go see when you and your sister can be released," David told them, wondering if he could nick something stronger than Aspirin from the clinic for the raging headache he could feel coming on.

* * *

"How did it go?" Snow asked David when they met back in the waiting room.

"Honestly? She's not much different," sighed Charming. "She's still kind of a bitch."

"Charming!" Snow gasped.

David sighed. "Oh, come on, Snow. We've both been thinking it since the Dark One mess. Our daughter is kind of an asshole. I know we both struggled to accept it at first, just like we struggled to accept her interest in Hook - though I have to say your method of acceptance by trying to turn her into a teenager out of the 1950's and squeeling over her dating life wasn't exactly the most productive method."

Snow crossed her arms and glared. "Well, fine, but at least I wasn't taking her boyfriend out to beat up people and steal their magical items for my own use. I know a part of you likes Hook because he's your excuse to embrace your own dark side, whatever latent traits of that 'Evil Twin' curse gene you're carrying around that you gave to our daughter. As horrible as it is what the spell we cast did, creating a loophole for Rumplestiltskin's curse, Whale is right. Can you imagine if we hadn't? Instead of a Savior with a pure heart, we'd have gotten that monster from my vision ripping them out before she'd even finished puberty. Emma's sister may be a bitch, but that's better than the alternative."

Running a hand over his head, David agreed, "I know you're right. I just feel... violated all over again. Every time I think that's the end of my family's secrets, another one pops up. I don't even know for sure which one of my parents had the evil twin. Whale assumes it was my father with the alcoholism and being the one who made the deal with Rumplestiltskin, but my mother's the one who lied to you about that charm. I just... I don't know anymore, Snow."

"Maybe Whale is right," she chuffed, "that all parents in The Enchanted Forest are assholes. But we're in Storybrooke now. And whether it was your mother or your father who got cursed, or one of them inherited it from some further back relative and has been passing down that charm, does it really matter? They're gone, it's the past. We're here and we have to do what's right for our children, for both Emma who never asked to be a savior and her sister who never asked to be evil. They're both essentially cursed, Charming. And maybe it was the meddling and manipulation, the secrets and lies of people we trusted who lead to this as much as our own mistakes and shortsightedness, but those people aren't here to hold accountable. It's just us and our daughters."

"And dinner tonight at Regina's," reminded David.

"And that. But it can't be that horrible, can it?" wondered Snow.

"You should probably bring your bow just in case."

* * *

AN: So, the Real Emma Swan has made a triumphant, if depressed, comeback while (Not)Emma has been freed of any scruples. The _Star Trek_ episode on the TV is "Mirror Mirror", one of the most famous of the original series in which Kirk ends up in The Mirror Universe, an alternate reality in which Star Fleet and the galaxy are militaristic, ruthless, xenophobic, incredibly violent, and for some hilarious reason Evil Spock has a gotee, thus originating the pop culture cliche (remember that _South Park_ episode?) that all evil twins have gotees.

Next up: Sartorial speculation and David and Emma have a father-daughter talk.


	3. Made In China

**Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.**

* * *

CHAPTER THREE

MADE IN CHINA

By the time David got to the nurses station to ask about his daughters being discharged, "Bella" had discharged herself and texted that she was going for a sail with Hook to clear her head... and hopefully come up with something to call herself since two Emmas would get very confusing and it would be hard to keep a straight face if she went with "Bella" after the movie scenes Henry had found on YouTube about that dumb teenager and her vampire boyfriend.

While (not)Emma was off sailing, Emma, who had no house, no car, and no cell phone accompanied Snow and David back to The Loft while Henry went to school. Thus began the morning of sorting through some boxes of clothes she'd bought while in Storybrooke that she wasn't able to fit in the Bug when Pan's Curse hit - and a few other things brought back from New York that Emma had left in the apartment's basement rather than at Granny's - that she could now use to begin reassembling her life and identity.

"I really don't want to be an inconvenience," Emma muttered, looking around her old bedroom that she hadn't herself been in since putting her brother's crib together and her sister had been in only rarely, mostly to make out with Hook the few times she got stuck baby-sitting in her mother's obvious attempt to encourage her to get pregnant without actually saying so, because the only way Snow White seemed able to bond was turning interactions into a weird 1950's sitcom - which seemed fine by Emma's sister.

David, by contrast, made everything into an episode of _Ask This Old House_ and set about re-hanging light fixtures, hauling screen dividers up from the basement, and fixing squeaky floorboards. That was much more up Emma's ally. Her sister could keep the ugly dresses and picket fences.

"You're not an inconvenience," David assured her. "Neal won't mind. Just be warned he'll wake you up at five and demand bedtime stories. Really, he'll be thrilled. Your sister never spent time with him."

"Yeah, I know," sighed Emma. "All her free time was taken up banging Hook... or going to Archie to try and shut out my objections to her banging Hook, which he was happy to do. He's nice, but Archie seriously sucks at his job."

"Well, Archie did accidentally get Geppetto's parents murdered by his parents because he trusted Rumplestiltskin," David reminded. "And he also protected Geppetto's right to be a selfish jerk interfering with a plan to save humanity rather than ensuring you got to come to this world with me or your mother so you wouldn't have to grow up the way you did."

"Yeah, that too," Emma snorted and David shrugged.

"To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why Snow picked him to be our court advisor and designed conscience of the kingdom. Not that I think Hook was any kind of hero for abandoning his half-brother after killing their father, but at least he knew it would be wrong to just take in the kid whose parents he killed and pretend they were cool."

"Well, probably only because Neal called his bullshit on that after finding out Hook was involved in his father killing his mother," Emma countered, then wondered, "Can I get a memory potion from Regina for that? To forget that I sort of had sex by proxy with my son's step-grandfather? I don't want to have to know what Hook's penis looks like let alone what it feels like to have it-"

"Something to ask at diner tonight," David desperately cut her off while moving some of his son's toys, "without the graphic details. Now, let's get that bed frame."

"I just hope Mom really bleaches the shit out of that quilt," Emma grumbled giving a dubious look to he old mattress they'd retrieved from the basement, not wanting to acquire any cooties, however long it had been since the linens got infested.

"Don't worry. We have a whole Hook-disinfectant kit that we use after he comes over and does anything more than stand around like a floor lamp," David reassured. "Speaking of, we should move one from the livingroom since we can't fit both nightstands. Be right back!"

David headed out of the room leaving Emma to finished hanging her small assortment of clothes in the old wardrobe, glad she had enough to get by for awhile since Storybrooke didn't have much that wasn't out of an L.L. Bean catalogue or a Renaissance Fair. Unfortunately, a lot of the New York stuff was plaid outfits and stripper heal boots that Emma chalked up to Regina's last-moment memory spell badly mashing up Emma's actual past flannel fashions with her own dominatrix fashion fetish, because even Emma's sister had abandoned the stuff in a moth-filled box that was now in the dumpster out back.

There were a few pre-Cleo things, mostly that flannel, stuff that wasn't exactly fashionable for a thirty-plus year old woman... not that they had been for a twenty-seven year old woman acting like she was stuck in arrested development at eighteen.

Emma supposed she'd kept the stuff in part because she'd maybe settled in Boston long enough to actually start keeping stuff, but mostly unsure if the bounty hunter thing would end up being permanent and if the wardrobe she adopted to look badass instead of novice would end up in the bottom of her trunk with that old thrift store maternity dress, just a costume from a brief phase of her life that had failed.

It was here in Storybrooke, really, in the eyes of Henry, Graham, and Mary Margaret - even Archie - that the whole jeans, boots, leather and tanktops look had started to feel like she'd earned it, that it could maybe even be her instead of an act, like it was some superhero outfit being passed down. Like maybe Henry finding her was some karmic 'your forgiven' from Cleo.

Now they were just clothes again, Emma considered glumly. Her sister had co-opted the jacket, transformed it from an orphan's armor as she impersonated a real hero to a savior's cape as she... well... her sister was no hero, which is maybe what sucked the most about the whole thing: being a selfish jerk while everyone praised her for being so amazing and selfless... while Emma had spent her months in Storybrooke struggling to do the right thing and being so often criticized for it.

She'd wanted to get Henry out of an emotionally and psychologically abusive home, and he wanted out, so she took him - and her mother (well, room mate then) and her kid's shrink told her she was a horrible mother and person. Her sister dragged Henry to The Underworld, neglected him, manipulated him in a plot to cover up murder - and everyone said it wasn't her fault, she was a good person, a great mother.

If there was one thing Emma really hated, it was hypocrisy. And it turned out to be some kind of weird core value in her family that she couldn't figure out. Like her mother's and sister's fashion choices.

At least her old denim jacket was here. Even if it smelled a bit musty, it felt familiar in a way that wasn't warped in a _Twilight Zone_ kind of way like everything else. After discarding the top half of the flannel and tights get-up that the magical-splitting had dressed her in, Emma pulled on a suede skirt and button-down shirt that had a stain on the front she vaguely remembered as raspberry jelly from a donut one morning in her deputy days when the bakery was out of bear claws. The jacket hid the stain well enough, so at least she could go to dinner looking presentable, even if she felt like a complete mess.

Sitting down on the bare mattress, Emma lamented that it felt like her sister had been subtly sabotaging her happiness her entire life, even if it wasn't intentional. Stealing things. Abandoning Lily. Coming up with that stupid _stupid_ plan to steal those watches. Breaking into that city hall. And most of all: giving up Henry.

Emma sighed while picking up her keepsake cigar box retrieved from the Sheriff's Station and pulling out her swan pendant necklace. She'd worried it wouldn't be there since her sister had never checked, but the Dark One transformation spell had somehow put all her old jewelry in the box. Maybe it had been able to sense her presence and preserved those parts of her while at the same time further liberating her bitchy sister who felt no connection to any of this stuff, even when some of it symbolized selfish or stupid things she influenced Emma into doing.

While Emma knew she couldn't blame all of her crap choices on her sister, she could now look back at moments she felt almost schizo, like someone else was in her head encouraging her to do or not do something, and now it made total sense and it pissed her off for all the years she'd carried self-loathing over that shit, kept little momentoes to remind her that she'd fucked up and it was all her fault. Only it wasn't exactly.

Every time she'd tried to do the right thing, her sister's darkness would feed on her insecurities and abandonment issues, Emma now realized, to get the upper hand, to persuade her to run away, to steal, to not let her walls down and instead distrust and/or use people who could have helped her make something of her life without unnecessary death, without going a decade as a miserable, guilt-ridden, self-loathing loner stuck in arrested emotional (and fashionable) development who was prone to inexplicable moments of reckless selfishness that just kept heaping on the guilt.

She'd felt like she must be such a horrible person to do things like that and feel nothing in the moment.

It was disturbing to realize now that her sister's worst qualities had so easily taken over at times.

And it was disheartening how little effect Emma's light, her compassion, had on her sister when her twin was the one calling the shots.

She'd heard someone say once that darkness was fast and furious while light was a slow burn. Maybe that's why it had taken time to show any real positive personality changes in the other woman. But would they last? What little empathy she'd saddled onto her sister? Could that be learned or absorbed by osmosis or she just go 'full James'... or worse _Zelena_ on everyone?

Emma wasn't really looking forward to finding out tonight - not to mention _Zelena,_ but she obviously couldn't avoid her twin either. They'd have to reach some sort of... agreement like Regina and her Zelena had, she supposed... though no way in Hell would she live with that selfish bitch!

"Here, this should work," David interrupted her thoughts, plugging a lamp into the outlet in the corner. "Now we just need the linens and you're good to go."

"Yeah, just need to figure out everything else in my life," Emma sighed as she affixed the necklace's clasp and squashed down the anger she still felt at her sister, at what the other woman's selfish hypocrisy might well have cost her while she got to have it all.

"Hey, everything will work out," David told her, slipping an arm around her shoulder.

"Will it?" Emma countered while fastening Graham's shoelace to her wrist. "I was stuck living her life. And I know it was the same for her for a lot longer, but it feels like she got all the rewards for the good that I did and while being a selfish bitch who didn't even deserve anyone thinking she should get them besides! All I've got is a box of trinkets, and they're tainted now too."

Gesturing to her box, she complained, "She let Hook riffle through my private stuff that she doesn't even care about. She violated my privacy, and I know she thought she was me, but she didn't really give a shit about this stuff and only let him see it so she'd look vulnerable and make him even more horny since he's a misogynist asshole who was flattered that he got to see all this stuff before anyone in my actual family, like that made him even more important than you guys."

Scowling, she pulled the dreamcatcher out of her file box. There had to be some magic in it, because she had more control than her sister when holding it, though it hadn't been for long and then Hook had snatched it away, demanding a story and it got thrown in the box and forgotten. She'd at least managed to twist the story, to change the facts, to spare some of that intimacy from being destroyed by the narcissistic asshole with a MILF fetish who'd reveled in cuckolding two generations of the same family. But in the end that hardly mattered.

"I gave this to Neal a long time ago," Emma sighed. "After he died... I thought next time I got to New York, I'd bring it back here from his place, give it to Henry. Instead my sister brought it back and used it as inspiration for her Dark One debauchery, breaking Henry's heart, erasing all your memories to cover up her deadbeat boyfriend's murdering. Now it's a bad memory for Henry, just like our song. That hurts the most. That she ruined stuff that should have been something good for Henry to remember his dad, stuff that should have made Neal more... real instead of just a concept that was never fully realized."

Laughing bitterly, Emma amended, "Hell, she did that with my childhood stuff, stuff that would have been mine, that Mom told me about after I accidentally burned my old would-have been nursery. It all became piles of junk in her creepy Underbrooke fuckpad. I look at the pictures in Henry's book of that mobile, those toys, all the stuff that should make me feel good about the childhood you were making for me, and it's all eclipsed by her day-drinking with that disgusting pirate and fretting," she rolled her eyes, "that his mass-murderer brother was right that she wasn't good enough for his drunk, skank ass while Henry was out being minded by a serial killer. I guess maybe she's _not_ good enough when he at least wanted to stay dead like he deserved."

"Love makes people do irrational things," David pointed out. "It made you steal those watches, didn't it?"

Emma snorted. "Pretty sure that was my sister hoping Neal would get caught and thrown in jail and she'd bail with the rest of the money. She wanted to not be living out of a car. I just wanted the car anywhere with Neal.

"Like I wanted to haul deadbeats off to jail so other people got justice when I felt like I didn't," she continued, "but my sister, she'd just wanted the reward money for fancy apartments, leather jackets, and tight dresses with come-fuck-me heals for one-night-stands with guys who were just as horrible deadbeat assholes but didn't have a bounty on their heads. The only thing love made me do was have hope for half a day that I could have happy ending. And she destroyed it. How do I forgive her for that?"

"You forgave Neal, didn't you?"

Shrugging, Emma responded, "After finding out it was August who played us both I started to. But honestly, not completely until after he died and I realized how selfish and stupid I'd been to let the pain of the past, mistakes we both made that helped other people manipulate us, get in the way of even just being friends. I let him down big time. Like he let me down back then. But we were supposed to have learned from those mistakes. Instead he got conned and I didn't believe enough in us still having true love to try saving him."

"Then don't make that mistake with your sister, like I did with my brother," David told her. "I didn't give him a chance. I didn't try to understand why he hated me or realize until it was too late that Hades was just using him as a pawn. He was a jerk, but we both deserved better than how it ended."

Shrugging, he amended, "Maybe, deep down, under that selfishness and greed, your sister just wanted the same things you did, the same things my brother did: to have someone put her first, instead of their own legacy or ambitions."

"Yeah, and she chose Captain STD," snorted Emma, "who only puts her first so he can ogle her ass."

"Just... try to keep an open heart and mind," David encouraged. "Your sister wanted her own story, and while I don't fully understand what either of you experienced, just from what it felt like for me when I started remembering my pre-curse life with your mother, I was confused and angry and it felt like someone was taking over my life, controlling me, influencing me into making decisions I didn't want, that I knew were wrong - or even that I knew were right - but it didn't feel like I was the one making those choices.

"That's what was the hardest," he said, "that whether I agreed or not, whether I wanted to be with your mother or Kathryn, work at the pet shop or move to Boston, it was like some other force - the Curse - was manipulating me, taking away my free will every time I got just a smidgen of it. If that nearly broke me in just four months, I can't imagine a few years of existing in that state - let alone half a lifetime and having never known what it's like to be in control of your destiny."

"I know you're right," Emma conceded, "but it just... I feel like all my dreams have been ruined while she got the happy ending I was working so hard to earn."

"Now you sound like your mother when we learned about Regina's curse," David recalled. "I know it's hard to accept that loss, but that doesn't mean you won't get a happy ending, Emma. It just won't be what you expected when you first let yourself believe you could have one. It's hard to accept that those dreams won't come true. But you can have new dreams... while still holding onto the spirit of those you've lost," he told her, gesturing to the dreamcatcher.

"It doesn't feel like it," Emma grumbled. "My sister went to the freak'n Underworld to split her heart - as idiotic and selfish as that is - and I couldn't even _try_ that. Why did she get to find out about all of that shit when her true love died? Why does she get all the breaks since taking over while I just struggled and failed and got punished for trying to do the right thing?"

"I don't know," David replied with a sigh. "Sometimes things happen and we don't find the answers we need until it's too late."

Emma gave him a 'thanks for that bullshit line' look and he shrugged and tried again, "Look, I know it feels like the Universe screwed you over, Emma. Do you know what I thought when you and your mother found a way home using Lake Nostos? That it wasn't fair. What if I'd just dug a little deeper? I could have saved my mother. She could have come to this world with you and raised you. But I can't let that haunt me, being consumed with guilt for 'if only I'd known' and done something different, because I didn't, so I couldn't."

Trying to sound hopeful, David concluded, "Neal told you that he's happy and you couldn't have known there was a way to get to him before he moved on. Just like you couldn't have known the full consequences of Zelena's curse. So he wouldn't want you to beat yourself up about it."

"But I could have been smarter than that and not fallen for her trick!" complained Emma.

"I'm sure Neal felt the same. Zelena is clever and you were both desperate to protect your families," David replied. "She took advantage of that."

"Yeah, the only difference is I was just cursed. Neal is _dead_ and he's not coming back and when he tried to warn me not to go to The Underworld and told me he loved me not only couldn't I even say it back, my selfish bitch sister asked if he could help her split her heart to save Hook! So, for all I know, he thinks I'm a shallow skank who didn't love him anymore and was too busy swooning over his deadbeat step dad to fight for him the way he promised to always fight for me," she sniffed. "How do I not let that haunt me?"

"Because he wouldn't want you to let it. And if he did think that, Emma, I'm sure he knows now that's not true," David told her. "And he obviously forgave you then. That's true love."

"Yeah, true love, and what did it ever do for us?" Emma retorted, fingering the keychain. "It didn't split hearts or bring back the dead. All it did was let a piece of cheap jewelry pass between worlds so he could give it back to me as he died. That doesn't exactly seem like much compared to everyone else. It's kind of sad and pathetic, really."

"That's not true," David argued. "It meant something to you once and it carried that magic, that love, in a world of different magic, even with all of the pain and misunderstanding. And that love, it gave you _Henry_."

"And I had to give him up because that love wasn't enough to keep us together. Because August said it would keep me from my destiny. To what? Break that stupid curse and then get cursed myself? I had like... five, six months total actually getting to be his mother without losing my memories or being... suppressed into some subconscious of my jerk sister who neglected him for her booty call. How is that worth it? How did that make Neal's sacrifice worth anything? I couldn't keep my promise to make sure he grew up better than we did. I didn't get justice for him with Zelena. Everything went to shit. He's dead and I failed him. And I failed Henry. I failed at being The Savior!"

"No, Emma, _we_ failed you," David argued. "We expected too much of you, kept things from you, didn't support you when we should have, tried to make decisions out of guilt, and then tried to support you when we shouldn't have out of guilt."

Brows furrowing, Emma asked, "So you didn't help Neal get back to me and Henry and you thought the best way to fix that was to help me get _Hook_ back?"

David let out a sigh before answering, "Like I said, we felt guilty about a lot of things. What your mother said in the Echo Caves, and that she chose to stay in Neverland with me after jumping through that portal after you. She knew how that must have seemed, like she got a taste of motherhood with you-"

"And I was a massive disappointment. But my sister wasn't?"

"Of course not! But we realize it must have felt that way after Neverland, like you weren't good enough, so we supported things that we shouldn't have," David tried to explain. "And we wanted you to have an easier time than you had in the past. Every parent wants a better, easier life for their children. It was foolish to think Pan's Curse would never be broken - or that it wouldn't be for such a long time that things between you and Neal..."

He shook his head. "It was wrong, what we did - or didn't do. There's no good justification for it. Even if we thought we were protecting your happiness, we were supporting a lie, again taking away your right to choose - _and_ keeping Henry from knowing his father. I suppose given my own history with my father - the man that I thought he was then, I judged Neal unfairly and I'm so sorry for that, Emma, if our inaction in any way led Neal to make that desperate choice to use dark magic."

"Like everyone else," scoffed Emma, "but for some reason it's only the people who deserve to be the exception to the 'always comes with a price' rule who get punished!'

She stood up and growled, "It's the people who know they fucked up, who feel bad about it, who were just trying to get a bit of happiness after spending their whole lives putting it aside to help others that get no second chance. Neal was more of a savior than I ever was. All he did was try to help other families and every time the villains and assholes of the universe undercut his sacrifices, made them amount to nothing, until he finally said 'fuck it, if no one will fight for me, I have to do it myself' and _he died_ and he doesn't get to come back. But _Hook_ does? _You_ do?

"I mean, no offense," she continued off her father's grimace, "but you get to share half mom's heart after she basically murdered you to cast the darkest curse ever made, but coincidence, you don't remember you can actually do that until the day after Neal dies?

"I don't want a bullshit lecture from someone who always gets loopholes and exceptions to the rules," Emma told him darkly. "Who doesn't really know half of what actual suffering is. I'm sorry, but endless 'have hope it'll get better' speeches from someone who gets free fucking passes from the Universe doesn't make me feel better!"

Emma walked over to the wardrobe and began sorting again through her meager outfits. Her fingers curled momentarily around the old thirft store maternity dress with its ugly flowers, and the anger and bitterness surged that her sister had taken something from the only truly happy period of her life and warped it into her own symbol of actual happiness.

She knew it wasn't fair. Her twin had no real, concrete, memories of her own from then and had to extract bits and peices of meaning for herself. It still hurt, though. It was hers, even if it was just a stupid dress, and every time she had put on some ugly boutique dress or top with stupid flowers on them to emulate that moment, to say "I found Tallahassee with someone else" felt like an intentional "fuck you", even if it wasn't.

"Emma-"

"I appreciate you letting me stay here," she cut him off, "but I'd really like to be alone right now."

David sighed and stood as well. "I understand. But know that whatever you think of the choices your mother and I made, and whether or not you can forgive what they've cost you, you have more than just a box of trinkets, Emma."

Her father left the room.

Shutting the wardrobe doors, Emma took a breath and then brushed at her eyes before wrappibg her hand around the keychain. She wanted to believe if she closed her eyes should feel his true love... but all she felt was the metal warming in her hand.

And then she heard the front door opening and her brother's babbling and all she was left with was the tiny imprint of "Made in China" on her palm, less conspicuous than the Dark One branding that had sealed Neal's fate. It faded quickly away, taking with it any hopes of still finding Tallahassee.

* * *

Next up: Family dinner. What could go wrong?


	4. Witches & Bitches

**Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.**

* * *

CHAPTER FOUR

WITCHES & BITCHES

In retrospect, Regina realized that she should have talked Zelena into not attending this particular family dinner, though no amount of reasoning ever did seem to work with her sister. So it was maybe inevitable that the redhead would greet Emma with an inappropriate quip and Emma would, in response, punch Zelena so hard that the former Wicked Witch ended up flat on her ass with blood spurting out of her nose and looking utterly shocked that the woman usually apathetic to her taunts had suddenly reacted so violently.

In retrospect, Regina also probably should have informed her sister about the whole twin thing, but she had her own personal reasons for being presently ticked off with Zelena and the potential for some reaction that ended badly for her sister had been too good to pass up.

Regina was reformed, but that Evil Queen darkness would always be a part of her.

"You little bitch!" Zelena shrieked.

"You psychotic murderer rapist witch!" Emma spat back.

Just then the front door opened with the arrival of Emma's twin and _that_ was the expression that Regina was going for.

She hauled her idiot sister up and told her, "That one's the Evil Twin. You know about those, _sister_. Naturally, she doesn't give two fucks that you killed _that one's_ lover. And if _she_ does, that's her right. You murdered Henry's father just to laugh about it and torture _his_ father. A broken nose is nothing compared to what either of us deserves for the despicable things we've done. So shut up and go make sure your rape victim's child isn't eating all of the cookies."

Zelena glared at her. "This is because of the other night isn't it? I said I was sorry."

"You didn't mean it," Regina huffed in response.

"You know what?" Zelena scoffed while using magic to fix her bloody nose, "I think I'll skip this family dinner and take Robin to Granny's."

"Don't let the back door hit your bitch ass on the way out!" Emma called after her.

"Harsh," (not)Emma remarked.

Emma scoffed. "Really? She killed Henry's father. She raped Robin. She used some twisted bestiality magic to make a man con me into a relationship to keep me from saving _our family_ from having their existence erased. She did all of that and you set her free and now she's actually welcome here even though she's not remotely sorry for any of her horrible crimes. Just like you and your walking dildo."

(not)Emma snarked, "I can see this family dinner is going to need lots of alcohol."

"There's wine chilling in the kitchen," sighed Regina.

"Great, I'll get it."

As (not)Emma headed for the kitchen Hook made to follow and Emma stepped in his way. "Oh look my sister is going somewhere and Hook absolutely has to follow because he can't be more than five feet away from her for more than five seconds or he suffers separation anxiety."

Hook glowered at her. "Look, that witch may have helped give your sister the upper hand or whatever, but you're the one who chose to accept the consequences of that curse when you puckered up, _Emma_. And I won't let you make the woman I love into a villain just because she opened her heart to love while you continually rejected it. We could have had something. It was you who first drew me in."

"I didn't 'draw you in'. You stalked and bullied me and kept invading my personal space," Emma challenged, "because you either couldn't stand a woman being immune to your sick charms or I reminded you of Milah and you had some sick need to shag her grandson's baby mama. I just wanted you to shut the fuck up and leave me alone, and I'm sorry that backfired and encouraged your skank ass into coming after me even harder like some sick sexual predator. You disgust me and having any kind of carnal knowledge of you, even if you were physically doing it with my sister, makes me want to vomit."

"On second thought," retorted Hook, "I'm glad that something ran its course rather quickly. I'd forgotten how caustic you were. I thought it was simply the wall around your heart, but apparently you're just a bitch."

"She really is, isn't she?" (not)Emma agreed, returning with a full glass of wine.

"I think I'll get another bottle from the cellar," said Regina.

"I'll help," Snow offered.

"I'll just take these mini quiche out to the deck then," decided David.

"I'll get napkins!" Henry was quick to add.

The foyer cleared out in a hurry and Emma herself brushed past her sister into the kitchen, intending to get some ice for her hand. Of course, her sister followed.

"A rather homely bitch too," (not)Emma amended. "Those glasses are ugly, sis. And your hair looks awful."

Emma shut the refrigerator and glared as she responded, "You threw out my contacts and even if you'd left shampoo at Mom and Dad's I wouldn't touch anything that made contact with your filthy snatch. And wearing designer dresses with ugly flowers on them doesn't make your skanky ass romance true, it just means you have shit taste in fashion. Like Captain McBaldy has in toupees."

The punch shouldn't have been a surprise given Emma's reaction to Zelena. Different as they were made by the Evil Twin Curse, they _were_ twins.

Glasses broke and the Emma slammed, surprised, into the refrigerator, scattering magnets on the floor.

"I got it from you, sis," (not)Emma hissed. "You're the one who kept me prisoner for thirty years."

"That wasn't my fault!" Emma snapped in return. "That happened because of the spell our parents had cast. Be mad at them, not me!"

"I _was_ mad at them. That's in the past. You can be pissed off at them now for it if you want," (not)Emma shrugged. "I've moved on to getting my shit together and having a life. It's funny, too. I mean, the house with the picket fence was _your_ dream, wasn't it? You wanted to share that with _Neal_. But now that loser is dead and I'm the one living the Tallahassee dre-"

The counterattack was magical, throwing her sister across the kitchen and into Hook, knocking them both to the floor along with a bowl of apples.

"SHUT UP!" Emma shouted as they picked themselves up. "Neal was a better person than you or Captain STD will ever be! It's your fault I never got to talk to him! You were so fucking obsessed with your dirty pirate! Every time I wanted to talk to Neal, you were pulling me toward 'Killian'! I didn't even get to have coffee with him before he died! Or give him a proper headstone! And then you treated my son like a crappy obligation on top of it!"

(not)Emma scoffed. "Please, it was your fear of abandonment that kept you away from him as much as my petty revenge and lusting after someone else. He died because you weren't strong enough to even try true love's kiss. You were afraid you didn't love him enough and it wouldn't work and then he'd die knowing you didn't even want Tallahassee with him anymore. And the headstone was just you being a lazy shit who didn't pay attention and picked the first thing in the funeral director's book. So don't try and pin that crap on me, coward!"

" _I WAS GOING TO GET IT CHANGED WHEN I SAW I PICKED THE WRONG ONE AFTER THE FUNERAL!" Emma shouted back, "BUT YOU KISSED THAT SCUMBAG AND DIDN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT NEAL! YOU EVEN TOLD HIS FATHER NOT TO SAVE HIM BECAUSE THAT WOULD TAKE AWAY HIS DYING A HERO. HOW IS THAT BETTER THAN GETTING TO LIVE TO BE THE FATHER HE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE? AND HOW WAS IT HEROIC WHEN YOU LET HIS KILLER LIVE AND RAISE HER OWN KID THAT SHE GOT BY RAPING A GUY THAT YOU THEN GOT KILLED TO RESURRECT YOUR DEADBEAT ASSHOLE FUCKBOY!?"_

"HE'S NOT A DEADBEAT!" (not)Emma yelled back, grabbing Hook's sword from his belt - because the pirate really couldn't stand to not be loitering within reach of her. "AND HE'S MY FIANCÉ, YOU PATHETIC JEALOUS BITCH!"

* * *

"... You don't know that what Whale said is true," Snow told Regina as they sat on the patio enjoying the minnie quiche with glasses of wine or, in Regina's case, she'd gone straight to hard cider.

"But it has merit," Regina argued. "You've seen those disturbing nature shows with the baby monkeys that starved and got depressed and crazy with their useless wire frame fake mothers versus those that clung to the fuzz-covered ones that made fake monkey sounds and gave them food. I was raised by a wire-framed woman who gave me nothing but insults and abuse. The first sounds I must have known where her laughing cruelly while crushing other people's hearts. There was no constant, no touchstone otherwise, just silence. I was deprived of something vital, natural, that all children are supposed to have."

"But not all do."

"No, not all," snorted Regina. "Robin may have been spared being killed by her Evil Twin, but she was born before she was even able to discern sound other than her mother screaming bloody murder in labor. And now she's being raised by that psycho who apparently has a bona fide mental disorder. I don't know... was I right to not contest Zelena raising her? I didn't want to seem hypocritical after all the terrible things I've done, but how many second chances can I really give my sister for the atrocities she still commits? The next time she falls in league with some new villain, what do I do? She could very well end up helping this alchemist."

"I don't know," sighed Snow. "She has an illness that seems to amplify addictive and violent behavior as well as selfishness. She had her whole life for it to grow into a full-blown psychosis unlike Emma's sister. It's not her fault on the one hand, but on the other, if she keeps hurting others, if she could influence Robin in some negative way..."

That conversation was put on hold when Hook suddenly came barreling into the yard and exclaimed, "You have to stop them! I thought it would be hot, seeing the two of them fight, but then Swan took my sword-"

Shattering glass brought everyone to their feet, Regina running ahead of everyone else to save her kitchen from total destruction. And, of course, the two blondes, but mostly her kitchen and the lasagna in the oven.

They found the place a complete wreck. One of the sisters had Hook's sword, using it to deflect the knives being magically hurled at her by the other, though Emma's aim wasn't very good anyway.

"IT'S MY CAR!"

"YOU COULDN'T HAVE STOLEN IT WITHOUT MY HELP!"

"YOU WOULD HAVE LET THE COPS TAKE NEAL AND DRIVEN TO CANADA YOURSELF TO WASTE ALL OUR MONEY ON RUM AND MALE PROSTITUTES!"

"BUT I WOULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN KNOCKED UP IN THE BACKSEAT!"

"BECAUSE YOU WOULD HAVE PUSHED THE BUG INTO A LAKE!"

"BETTER THAN BEING STUPID ENOUGH TO BREAK PAROLE FOR A GUY WHO BETRAYED YOU, THINKING HE'D BE WAITING FOR YOU IN TALLA-FUCKING-HASSEE!"

"YEAH, WELL, I WOULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN PREGNANT IF YOU DIDN'T LIKE CONDOMS, YOU HERPES-INFECTED HOE-BAG!"

"THEN YOU SHOULD THANK ME FOR GETTING YOU KNOCKED UP! HERE I THOUGHT HENRY WAS THE BEST THING YOU EVER DID!"

"YOU MADE ME GIVE HIM UP!" Emma cried.

"AND YOU KEPT ME YOUR FUCKING PRISONER FOR THIRTY YEARS!"

(not)Emma then slammed her elbow into her nearsighted sister's face, knocking her back again while telling her, "And you're shitty with a sword _and_ magic, sis. Stop embarrassing yourself."

"BOTH OF YOU STOP IT!" Snow shouted.

David grabbed Hook's sword away and demanded, "You're sisters. Act like it."

"So, I should find an estuary of eternal torment to throw her into?" (not)Emma snorted.

"How could you possibly find the time when you'd be too busy clinging to Hook like a weak little damsel? Oh, Killy-Poo, it's so scary! Hold me close while the men fight!" mimed Emma.

"Shut up, four eyes!"

"Make me, pirate whore!"

Exasperated, Regina magically shoved them apart and against the walls where the trees on the wall paper came alive to pin both sisters in place.

"What the hell!? I thought we were friends!" hissed (not)Emma.

"Apparently, only because you're a sociopath," sighed Regina. "which doesn't say much for our friendship or my own sanity, unfortunately. Regardless, I can't have you trying to disembowel Henry's mother in my kitchen. If you two have a score to settle, do it on your own time out in the forest somewhere. You can even invite my sister and make a battle royale of it for all I care. But this is a family dinner. And as much as this family often hates each other, we set aside one dinner a month to sit down like civilized people and not try to kill each other or vow revenge for past petty grievances. So both of you, shut up, grow up, and go outside while I fix your mess!"

"No alcohol for you, either," David directed at (not)Emma who glared.

"I'm an adult. You don't own me."

"And you have neither a sword nor magic but you do have a serious drinking problem," Snow retorted, grabbing her by the ear. "No trying to stab your sister!"

To said sister, she added, "And no trying to use magic to retaliate!"

"She started it! She punched me!"

"You called Killian-"

"I'm sure whatever she called Hook was entirely accurate," Regina interjected. "Now get out of my kitchen before I curse both of you. The lasagna better not have been ruined!"

Grumbling the twins followed after their glaring parents, a disappointed-looking Hook, and an exasperated Henry into the dining room.

"I'd be better at sword-fighting and magic if you hadn't gotten all the training," hissed Emma.

"You were part of me. Like I was part of you. How else did I not turn out a total vegetable pissing and shitting myself when I took over? Face it, I got the badass skills _and_ the hot fiancé. And you only got magic 'cause of that spell - and you're living with Mom and Dad sharing our baby brother's room!"

"Yeah, well, I'd rather live with our parents than in an creepy murder house."

"It's supposed to look like a castle," (not)Emma scoffed in return. "That's why Henry picked it out."

"Actually," interjected Henry, "that's just bs I told Hook. I was hoping you'd hate it because a giant, bland, ugly picket-fenced nightmare with a creepy-ass cave in the basement that's the whole reason the original owners put it up for sale. Gas from the Dwarf mines leaked in and killed their dog. I was kinda hoping Hook would turn the basement into his mancave and die of radon poisoning in his sleep after jerking off to one of those pirate pornos he loves."

Both (not)Emma and Hook scowled at that revelation and Henry shrugged and amended, "What? My grandfather's Rumplestiltskin. If I want revenge I come up with a cunning plan that can't be traced back to me, I don't go punching people in the face and stabbing them with swords like the rest of you." He rolled his eyes.

"I'm not sure whether to be proud or give you a lecture," Emma told her son.

She then smirked at her sister and amended, "Only a sicko would stay in the same house they did all that awful shit in whether you thought it looked like a castle or not. And we both know Henry having any part in picking it out had zero emotional impact on you, sis. You just wanted some place where you could have weird fully clothed petting sessions on the couch like a bimbo teenager... which I guess is the emotional development level of both you and Hook, so I can't say you aren't well matched."

"That's entirely your fault," huffed (not)Emma.

"Yeah, nothing's your fault ever either. The only guilt you ever felt about anything was _mine_ ," Emma accused.

"Which messed me the hell up! I actually went to _Archie_!"

"To make you feel better about being a lying, hypocritical jerk to your true love," snorted Emma. "You two really are soul mates."

Before (not)Emma could form a sardonic reply, Regina returned with the lasagna.

Needless to say, dinner was extremely tense and awkward, the only good thing about it being that Zelena had left before things really got heated... though that was sure to be a standoff revisited.

At the end of the night, Henry hugged his moms, waved halfheartedly at his aunt, and went up to bed while said aunt grudgingly, after being dragged aside by her parents, handed over the keys to the Bug to her sister with a gruff, "The engine needs a full overhaul anyway, so, whatever, take it. I was thinking of buying Lily's old Chevel anyway since she doesn't seem to be coming back. Blue's more my color."

Emma took the keys without thanks and headed out, driving off.

"You know you were only holding onto it out of spite," Snow told the scowling blonde. "It's the only real home your sister had for her entire adult life until she came here. And it's the only place she has to feel close to Neal. She wasn't as lucky as you that way. All she has is memories of true love. Please try to remember that."

"Yeah, well, at least she has shit from growing up. She has a past," (not)Emma grouched. "And she took all that hand-me-down shit, so I don't even have that."

"Maybe not," David said, "But however angry you are, that was our fault, not your sister's. She didn't know, any more than you did. You were each part of each other. You helped each other. And you hurt each other too. But focus on the helping. That's how you survived growing up alone, on the streets. She needed you then. And I know you don't want to admit it, but you needed her too when you took control."

"Your father's right," nodded Snow. "You would have spiraled completely into a bratty rebellious teenager without your sister tempering you. You'd have ended up following your every selfish desire and probably gotten yourself killed in The Underworld and never been able to live happily ever after with Killian. As much as you resent her, and as much as she hates him, she helped you choose grief over something foolish, so you were ready to go all-in when he did return. You can call your sister a coward, but you know that's not true. She learned from her mistake and that lesson, her grief and regret, helped you not to make the same one."

(not)Emma grimaced and sighed. "I guess that's possible."

"We want you both to be happy," Snow told her. "Which also means we want you both to be the best versions of yourself that you can, sweetheart. I know that might be hard for you, because of your father's family's curse. But it's not easy for your sister either. We took out her darkness, and if this world has taught me anything, it's that having only light can cause just as much pain as too much darkness. Neither of you is exactly who or what you should be, because of the choices other people in this family made. But you can help each other get closer to that until we can fix our mistakes."

"Maybe," (not)Emma shrugged and at the clock tower's chime added, "Night patrol. Gotta go. Thanks for dinner."

"Thanks for not entirely destroying my house," Regina grouched and watched her hurry down the sidewalk to join Hook who was swigging from his flask, which she took and imbibed in clear view.

"Drinking on duty. Wonderful."

"It's not like it's the first time," sighed David, earning disapproving looks from both women. "What? I tried to get her to stop, but she said she had a high tolerance, and she's the one who was elected, not me. I'm kind of on thin-ice with the whole being qualified for my job thing."

"Actually, it was her sister who was elected and I'm going to assume it was _Emma_ who has the actual high tolerance and not her Bizarro Twin," Regina pointed out. "I'll make sure she hands over her badge first thing in the morning."

"Regina-" Snow began.

"Fine, I'll leave it up to Emma to resolve, but I don't like this. They're both unstable. Did any of you want me to be Mayor when I was in Evil Queen mode? Emma's twin _especially_ needs therapy, to accept she's got something wrong with her and start doing something to clean up her act before she can be out there cleaning up other people's - because from what I've seen, that mostly means letting criminals get away with their crimes. And _that_ was when she had Emma holding her back."

"Both true," sighed David and Snow glared at him. "What? It was the only father-daughter bonding time I got! She spent the rest of her time with Hook!"

"Fair point. I hardly ever got to see her."

"It's high time we all stopped looking the other way," David stated. "We don't have the 'but she's The Savior' excuse anymore, Snow."

"And this town can't afford being protected by either a selfish tramp or an embittered basketcase," scoffed Regina.

They both nodded and Snow said to David, "Well, since both of our daughters clearly want some alone time, do you think we could get Granny to baby-sit for another hour?"

"Ugh, spare me your date sex night plans," groaned Regina and she magically shoved them out onto the front stoop. "Next time, your place," she concluded before the door slammed in their faces.

* * *

AN: It's pretty obvious that the show in Season 6 is going to shove it down our throats that Emma is in love and happy, that her ugly-as-sin floral patterned shirts and dresses mean she's found a new and better Tallahassee than what she had with Neal. (What did Zelena do that has Regina so pissed off? I have no idea, but I'll take suggestions.)

Next up: Grief interrupted.


	5. We All Fall Down

**Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.**

* * *

CHAPTER FIVE

WE ALL FALL DOWN

The cemetery was super creepy at night. Emma had never gotten used to it, not even during daylight really, as it seemed every time she'd visited it was raining or just plain gloomy outside, adding to the eerie and depressing state of the neglected grave.

Tonight, her hand still smarting from punching Zelena and her back still aching from being slammed into the handles of Regina's fridge by her own sister, Emma parked the Bug in the gravel lot and tampered down her paranoia before getting out - and leaving the windows down in an attempted to air out the stench of rum and her sister's perfume that itself barely masked pirate B.O... which was maybe why she wore the stuff, to deaden her sense of smell.

Emma frowned at the useless pine tree air freshener she'd picked up on the way and realized she would have to get the Interior professionally cleaned... even though she basically had no money and no job now because those belonged to her evil twin. Could she sue her sister for her savings and salary prior to their switch? It didn't seem like the other woman would just kindly had it over. And Emma didn't particularly like the idea of having to hire Gold to help get that compensation.

She'd been destitute before, of course - most of her life in fact - so it wasn't that Emma cared so much about the money, though she had taken pride in her job as Sheriff and it had felt good to make a legit living; being a bounty hunter, an occupation illegal in a lot of states, was really just barely the right side of the law. Being the real good guy with the badge had felt like she was finally, weirdly, in the most unexpected way discovering who she was meant to be but never believed she could. Of course, it had helped that it made Henry proud of her.

At least she still had her son, though Henry had grown up quite a bit, Emma lamented as she pulled her jacket around herself and trudged through the weedy grass. He'd learned most of what he needed to know from either Regina or her sister - and in both cases, that advice was pretty questionable and shaped her son in ways that didn't entirely sit right with Emma. His views on ethics and justice were, quite frankly, fucked up beyond all recognition, and she had no idea how to fix that, how to help Henry unlearn all of the crap he had lectured into him or just observed by bad example.

Even though she had her family now, which had gained another member, Emma felt more alone than she had in a very long time. Life had gone on and she wasn't really a part of it, her family had grown and grown closer, but she wasn't really the one fighting those battles against their foes or attending dinners, even though she had all of her sister's memories of doing so.

The one person she thought could maybe understand, that she wanted to talk to more than anyone wasn't here, and it was too late to change that.

Sucking in a breath of dewy air, Emma finally reached Neal's woefully neglected yet still too new and shiny looking headstone with its pathetically simple epitaph that even his father - that irked her - hadn't fixed.

Putting her jacket down on the damp grass and shivering a little, Emma sat and had to take a few deep breaths to keep from breaking down.

"I'm sorry I haven't been to visit," she began. "I don't know if you can hear me, though you found me once... even if it turns out you mostly found my twin sister and she didn't want us to talk, just wanted to get to The Underworld to split her heart with a douchey pirate. I don't know if being dead you knew about that, and it sucks that incorporeal soul vision kisses can't break curses, if that's even what we were. But either way, I'm sorry no one could save you when I was me _or_ her.

"Also, I'm sorry you had to stay at Granny's. Even staying with my parents and walking in on them having sex _again_ is better than that dump," she grimaced. "I wish we'd been able to get that coffee, though..."

Emma pulled at some weeds that had grown up, hating that no one had cared to maintain Neal's grave - not that her family had probably tended to any others. Her family had turned out to be the same sort of selfish pricks you'd find in any family, which maybe should have been reassuring, that they were normal people, but she'd hoped for more when she found out this magic and fairy tales stuff was all real, not to have the curtain pulled back and realize they were just extraordinary assholes.

"Henry misses you," Emma continued while pulling the leaves off a wilting dandelion. "I know he could use your advice. He's growing up and I missed being a proactive part of that too. My sister, she just barely gave a fuck about him, so his only male role models have been Hook and my dad who've basically taught him how to cheat at cards and that inside every girl is a damsel in distress who needs a handsome and heroic man to break down their walls and bring out their feminine side. So I guess it's no wonder Henry's girlfriend is an indoctrinated little noblewoman from Camelot instead of a girl with actual aspirations and brains."

Emma threw her mangled handful of weeds down in a huff and growled, "I might have been a mess after prison, but I could have taught him better than that! And the worst part? I only gave Henry up because of _her_ , because of _her_ making me feel like I wasn't qualified to be a mother, didn't want to be a mother. That's all she's ever done is make me doubt love, make me choose myself."

She sniffed and lamented, "I should have chosen you. I should have tried true love's kiss to save you. I should have been strong enough to fight those fears, those doubts. I should have been able to push back against her creepy obsession with Hook, keep my mind and heart clear. But I wasn't strong enough. She's right. I was a coward. I was weak. And now you're gone and I didn't even keep my promise to be there for Henry. And that's _her_ fault."

Sniffling, Emma continued, "You probably think that's selfish. I know you'd want me to try and see her side of things, of never getting to be in control, never having her own life, having to share all of her memories with me. And I guess that's true. I mean, she deserves to have her own life, but I didn't deserve to be punished so she could have it. And neither did you. We were supposed to have Tallahassee, Neal, not... whatever _this_ is.

"I guess I should at least be glad she stopped wearing this," Emma clutched the keychain, "before shagging her syphilitic boytoy. At least she didn't completely ruin our memories, even if it's just a dream now that'll never happen, cause there is no Tallahassee without you, Neal," she sniffed. "That's what I would have told you when you said you'd always love me, if I'd been able to get it out. I just hope you know I _would_ have gone to The Underworld for you if you'd been there, if I'd known about it when I still had the chance to right my wrong of not trying to save you in the woods that day. I'll always regret that. But I guess that's the tragedy of us, huh? Neither of us believed enough in true love when it mattered the most. I just hope you really are ha-"

A creaking sound startled Emma out of her one-sided conversation and she jumped to her feet. Squinting into the darkness - it was a nearly new moon and a cloudy night - she spotted a shadow emerging from Regina's crypt that obviously wasn't Regina.

Emma took off after the cloaked figure. She reached for her gun - that she didn't have - then tried to focus to throw magic at the person, but the stream of silvery tendrils sputtered badly and went wide, striking a tree instead, which just alerted the person that she was in pursuit.

Suddenly, another person came barreling into the scene at a perpendicular trajectory off a jogging track and called out, "STOP! SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT!"

It was her sister who then fired _her_ weapon, but the trespasser dodged it easily, then threw something glowing in their direction that exploded-

And in the next instant they were both swinging perilously on the rickety bridge across Storybrooke's gorge.

"Oh, great!" (not)Emma groaned as her gun tumbled down into the abyss as she grabbed for the ropes. "Well, poof us out of here!"

"I can't!" Emma hissed. "I've been trying magic all day and throwing knives at you and missing as badly as you missed that creep with _my_ gun was the best I've got! I haven't actually done any magic myself since Regina had me practicing vanishing cups of hot chocolate, and I'm pretty sure succeeding at that was mostly you showing off for Hook! So now I can't even fix the damn ropes!"

"Oh, please! You've just got some kinda mental block because you don't want to accept any responsibility for any of my actions using _your_ magic!"

"Why should I? They weren't mine!"

"Some of them were! The good ones! Mom and Dad are right that Hook wouldn't be here if you hadn't helped me let him go," admitted (not)Emma.

"How is Hook begin alive a good thing?" Emma scoffed in return. "My true love is dead because you're obsession with that pirate made me give into my fears that we couldn't have a second chance never mind _you_ not even trying to save him after screwing up our parents' story, and then getting to bring that asshole back from death a dozen different times like the fucking selfish hypocrite you are! You got a happy ending with a total creep and Neal died so you could! And now everyone praises you as The Savior even though you're a selfish bitch and somehow I'm the loser who didn't fight for love! It's not fair!"

(not)Emma groaned. "I know it's not! You think it's fair that I was just a voice in your fucking head for thirty years? That I don't have a childhood of my own, even if it would have been shitty? That I have to share my first love with you, some loser car thief."

"Right, because that's so much worse than to share your true love with a diseased rapist!" Emma hissed back. "I'd rather plummet to my death!"

"Then why don't you? You think I like having to remember giving birth to _your_ kid and your feeling guilty about it? That's not my life!"

The ropes began to unravel and one side listed badly sending them tumbling into each other and hanging off the bridge.

"FOR FUCK'S SAKE, TRY SOMETHING!" (not)Emma shouted.

"I AM!" Emma glared at her sister. "I HAVE PLENTY OF EMOTION RIGHT NOW AND IT'S NOT WORKING!"

(not)Emma glared back, then had an epiphany. "YOU'RE TRYING ANGER! THAT'S _MY_ THING! USE YOUR SAPPY SMILEY LOVE SHIT!"

Emma blinked. It was true. She had been focusing on her anger. It had worked in Neverland. Well, that was maybe more frustration and exasperation with Hook and Neal and - maybe it really was her desperation to save Henry, her love for him that-

The last of the tethers gave way just as purple cloud enveloped them and returned them to the spot in the forest they'd been minutes ago just as Hook run onto the scene clutching a bloody gash on his forehead.

"Swan!" he gasped, pulling her into an overly long hug. "I was so worried! That lunatic said you were dead!"

"Well, I'm not," she sighed, pulling away. "Thanks to... ah... Emma's magic."

"You helped me get it to work, though," Emma grudgingly admitted. "I should have known better that your method wouldn't work for me."

"Oh, wonderful, you've made up," Hook remarked cheerfully, "so might we get back to the station before I bleed out all over my own grave?"

* * *

The sisters might have reached a cease fire, but that didn't mean things were good between them. It only took a half an hour of watching her sister fawn over Hook, tending to his cut forehead while the pirate fondled her breasts through her floral print dress, before Emma was ready to both punch the wall and throw up.

"I'm calling it a night," she declared, grabbing her still-damp jacket and the rest of the crap cup of coffee from the machine no one had ever fixed.

"But we still have to canvas the area for that wanker who tried to kill us," Hook insisted.

"So call my father and you can bro around while making out with my sister," Emma griped. "If you're both fine wasting my time flirting with each other then you have to be fine with my deciding not to give a shit about this police investigation."

Emma made it to the parking lot before her sister caught up, arguing "Come on, don't be like that. This is a serious case."

"Yeah, and I'm the actual Sheriff," Emma shot back, "who should be calling the shots here. But you've got my badge and my gun, you filled _my office_ with all your shitty little 'true love' momentoes and I'd have to disinfect the entire building, anyway, not to mention the squad cars, to clean up all the bodily fluid stains you two skanks have left all over the place. So consider this one last freebie investigation I'm giving you before you get to find a new occupation!"

(not)Emma scoffed at her. "Wow. You know what? Fine. Leave. I actually tried to open up and admit I'm not perfect and all you want to do is keep tearing me down. I'm sorry I'm not magic's gift to law enforcement like you, but don't pretend you actually could have been a bounty hunter _or_ had what it took to run for Sheriff to spite Regina _without my spite_. You needed my darkness to give you that ambition. That nerve. And you need it to do this job, so right now, you're wholly unqualified, sis."

"And you're delusional!" Emma shot back. "I ran for Sheriff to prove I could be a good person, so my son would be proud of me! It was about protecting Henry, not 'ambition'. And you destroyed everything I was trying to teach him! You abuse prisoners! You don't give a shit about the people who suffer. You gave a fucking gun and badge to a man who shot an innocent woman in the back to spite her boyfriend! You've turned _my office_ into the definition of every fucked up police department in this country that gets on the news for shooting innocent people and touting themselves misunderstood heroes. So have your fun, _sis_ , finding this alchemist, then clear out _my desk_ , because I'm done with everyone teaching my son there's no need for justice because evil is just a literary trope!"

Emma got in the Bug and peeled out of the lot.

"Another fight, eh?" Hook deduced when a disgruntled-looking blonde stormed back in.

"She said I'm a terrible Sheriff. That I'm corrupt and a bad example for Henry," huffed (not)Emma.

Shrugging, Hook replied, "And?"

"Seriously? You agree with her?" she squawked.

Hook shrugged again and answered, "Why do you think I love working here? Besides getting to make out with you whenever I want? I always knew there was a bad girl inside you, Swan - just didn't figure it was _literally_ inside as in a different person merged with your honorable, justice-obsessed twin sister. 'Twas a relief when you gave into that, when you gave me a free pass for all the evil I'd done without needing to hear it, when I saw you were far from the stickler for the rules you seemed when we met."

"And you didn't think that was... off when I suddenly was... well... just like you?" asked (not)Emma.

"Assumed my charms wore down your struggling against your nature, that you were only trying to be a goody-goody for Henry or your parents but then decided 'fuck all' after those two basically told you that you were a disappointment in the Echo Caves and were happy to abandon you there for each other and then replaced you with another kid after Pan's curse. I mean, I certainly got being pissed at having your place usurped by another child and how that can... bring out one's darker side. Which, of course, can be a bad thing, but it can also be freeing, and I wanted you to be free of all the inhibitions forced upon you as The Savior. I wanted you to be yourself."

"Well, I'm not The Savior," she sighed and then considered, "I'm not even ' _Emma_ '. That's my sister's name and she's got the blanket to prove it. I'm just a nameless stowaway with some hereditary asshole disease."

"You're my nameless stowaway with some hereditary asshole disease," Hook told her. "And while I can't help you with the given name bit - you've only ever been 'Emma' or 'Swan' to me, I have offered to share the name 'Jones' as you recall."

(Not)Emma considered, "I suppose I'm not as opposed to that I was the other day. Seems my sister is weirdly attached to being named by a family who threw her back like an unwanted puppy. And while it _is_ sexy when you call out 'Swan' in the throws of passion, I'm pretty sure Emma," she snorted, "would take offense if I took that as my first name."

"Aye, she's easily offended. I'd forgotten that was one of her most dominant traits," Hook recalled. "T'was fun back then getting her all riled up... though it rarely had the payoff I'd been hoping to achieve."

"Getting in her pants, you mean."

Hook didn't deny it. "Aye, I wanted in your sister's pants, but I ended up in your heart instead, and that was the far better result."

"Good answer!" (not)Emma praised and rewarded her lover with a kiss.

* * *

Regina had only just finished cleaning up - doing it without magic was a way to burn off anger slowly enough that she didn't need an extra therapy session - when the doorbell rang. She swore under her breath and pulled open the door to face Emma Swan.

Eyes narrowing, she asked, "You're still the not-evil one?"

Squinting a little, Emma replied, "I kind of lost my glasses in the gorge after that creepy alchemist poofed me there and-"

"That explains the spectacular parking job then," Regina muttered of her ruined rose bush and magicked them back onto the blonde's face. Of course, they were broken again and she had to wiggle her fingers to repair the shattered lenses. "Perhaps you should go back to contacts. Magic can only mend them so many times."

"Um... yeah, probably. Thanks... again."

"What do you want other than to inform me of this alchemist attacking again? To which, I'm sure someone had a cell phone you could have borrowed to call if your sister is too busy getting banged in the ass by her pirate and your father too busy enduring the missionary position with your mother."

"Actually, I'm here for Henry," Emma stated. "But thanks for two disturbing images to haunt my dreams tonight. We're going on a roadtrip."

"At one in the morning?"

"I need to get out of here for awhile," Emma explained. "It feels like my life has been taken over and destroyed. Everyone just... went on without me, with this impostor version of me, and I know she wasn't intentionally trying to fool anyone, but she's the 'Emma Swan' everyone knows now. She's the Emma that _Henry_ knows. I just... I want to feel like I'm his mom again. I can't do that here when all I've got is all this... confusion and anger over what was taken from me. You get that, don't you?"

Regina sighed, because she did get that. She liked to think that she might not have devolved into the Evil Queen if she hadn't been trapped in the castle with her mother, Snow White, an unloving husband, and Rumplestiltskin visiting unannounced to offer her vengeance with darkness. It had taken coming to this world to even begin escaping that person she'd turned herself into with all of her anger and hatred. Henry had been the only thing that could break through that facade, bring out what goodness she still had left with her need to protect him, to be his mother. It was often tainted by selfish motives, of course, but in the end the better emotions of that maternal condition had won out.

"To where is this road trip?" asked Regina and Emma shrugged.

"New York. I've still got a safe deposit box I should close out. There's some bearer bonds in there from a job. I'm not sure my sister's willing to part with any of my savings since she seems convinced she's the only reason I didn't completely fail at being a bounty hunter or Sheriff," frowned Emma. "I've got some things in storage from my apartment there too that I could use here, I guess, if I can find a place. Plus there's Neal's place. It's been pretty neglected and his stuff isn't doing anyone any good there," sighed Emma. "Henry should remember Neal as more than just a kid who fell down a portal and then died a man who was a stranger to almost everyone."

Brow lifting, Regina inquired, "This is just for Henry, is it?"

Shrugging, again Emma admitted, "I was in his apartment twice after he died, but not really. I guess I want to know that his life wasn't so bad, that he did have some happiness in it. I don't want his life to have been completely miserable, three centuries of suffering for trying to do the right thing for other people."

"You might not like what you find."

"I know. The answers might suck worse than not knowing," Emma conceded. "But I have to know to get past this, to not be completely miserable and never be able to forgive my sister for being happy. And Henry should know about his father's life. Our stories aren't exactly a fairy tale, but it's where he came from and everyone deserves to know that."

"I suppose I can't dispute that," Regina agreed, "though I might switch 'happy' for 'oblivious slut'."

"You were friends."

"I'm a recovering mass murderer," sighed Regina. "It appealed to my... darker inclinations and habits that someone declared so pure wasn't as perfect as her insufferable parents. It appealed to my desire to find my better self that I'd lost so long ago that she had forgiveness - and friendship for someone who'd gone so far astray as I had. Maybe that was your compassion, I don't know. I can't say that we ever had time ourselves to become more than allies trying to save our son."

"I suppose not," Emma agreed. "And even then, I guess I did have my sister's anger and violent streak to contend with, sometimes not so well."

"My kitchen would contest that it's not all your sister's."

Emma winced. "I'm sorry about that. She really did provoke me and I can't seem to control my magic that well anymore. I guess it was used to that darkness or something."

"Magic does come more easily with darkness," Regina nodded. "I wanted to get rid of mine and that didn't go so well for either of us. I suppose I should have considered how well it went for you, your parents' casting that spell, even before knowing about this whole Evil Twin thing. You can't upset the natural balance without consequences. We all just have to deal with the things we've done and who they've made us into."

"I'm not sure I even know who that is now," sighed Emma. "It's sort of like the fake memories you gave me and that year in New York. I've got all my sister's memories, her experiences, but those weren't my choices, that wasn't my life. But before that, she was always there, her personality, her... cursed desires influencing me this way or that way. It's weirdly quiet in my head, I guess, and that's making me a bit crazy."

"I can't imagine going through life thinking a voice in your head was normal," Regina retorted.

"Moms?" Henry announced himself on the stairs. "What's going on?"

"We're taking a roadtrip," Emma informed. "Pack some stuff."

"Now? Where?" Henry asked, confused.

Regina answered. "New York, apparently. Your aunt never retrieved your things from storage."

"Oh, yeah," Henry nodded, "I always meant to ask about the stuff from our apartment. We're going now? I mean, it's-"

"Late, which means there's no traffic," said Emma. "Come on. Unless you don't want to?" she amended, a bit uncertain. "I just thought... we haven't had any actual time together for years without curses or memory charms, and-"

"No, it's cool," Henry shrugged. "I mean, if it's okay...?" he glanced at his adoptive mom.

"Probably safer with a lunatic on the lose anyway," concluded Regina. "If we all get sucked down a portal, you can penny wish us back or something. Go pack."

Henry glanced between his mothers and hurried back upstairs.

"If you do," Emma stated, "I might 'accidentally' make sure your sister is left behind along with mine. My twin might not care that Zelena murdered my kid's father, and you might not mind that lunatic being around Henry so you can have your sisterly whatever, but she's not my family, and if she gets anywhere near Henry, I will cut the bitch, so you'd better send her packing permanently back to that farm house."

"Threatening to stab my sister is hardly ingratiating yourself here," Regina retorted.

"I'm not my sister looking to be gal-pals who enable each other's shitty selfish decisions," Emma shot back. "I'm a mother trying to do what's in the best interest of my kid and that's not being around your sister who is a murderer and a rapist."

After a pause, Emma amended, "So are you, don't forget. The rest of my family seems to have, but I haven't. I wouldn't have agreed with some selfish quick-fix of pulling out your dark side instead of owning up to all the shit you used it to get away with, taking accountability for the mass murdering, for what you did to Graham, for what you did to me and my parents and gaslighting Henry to try and keep your cursed little paradise.

"You were really sorry once, I thought," Emma recalled, "but then your mother showed up and it was back to selfish old 'the universe hates me and nothing's my fault' Regina."

Regina grimaced and argued, "I feel plenty of guilt for my actions. It was your sister who told me that I shouldn't. That I should forget all of it, not let it haunt me."

"Yeah, great friend she is, huh?" snorted Emma. "I let things slide with you because you raised Henry and he loves you, Regina. I made an exception. But anyone else? The fact that you love Zelena means jack shit to me. She murdered my true love. _Your son's father_. And all she had to say about it was 'oops'. You welcomed her into this family because another one of her evil plots failed with a dead lover and a sob story from your mother. But she was never sorry. You were just thinking about you, how badly you wanted family by blood, as if that really means some kind of loyalty, not what's best for Henry."

"You're asking me to choose between my son and my sister?"

"If you really are capable of true love, that shouldn't be a hard choice," Emma stated as Henry came back downstairs.

She smiled at him. "Ready to go?"

"Yeah. Can I drive?"

"No," both Emma and Regina said at once.

Henry groaned in dismay and endured his adoptive mother's hug.

"Be good," Regina told him. "Keep your mother out of trouble."

"You know I can't promise that, Mom!" Henry exclaimed.

"It was worth a shot."

He rolled his eyes and headed down the front walk with his bag. The pleasant smiles faded away quickly then and Emma told the former Evil Queen, "I don't want us to be enemies, Regina. But I will fight for my son to grow up right, to not compromise stuff like ethics and justice just because there are bad apples in this family. My sister's violent tendencies or not, I will cut off whatever branches of this family tree threaten Henry's well-being."

That said, Emma concluded bruskly, "I'll do my best to keep Henry out of trouble."

"No promises, I know," Regina grimaced and amended, "Emma... I will talk to my sister."

Emma nodded back, the best answer she supposed she could get at this time of night, and went to join Henry at the curb.

"Did you run over the roses again?" he asked as they put his bags in the bonnet.

"That was one time I lost my contacts and the sun was in my eyes," Emma grumbled, remembering that winter, during the unofficial restraining order period and that Regina was thankfully not at home when she drove by to walkie-talkie talk with Henry.

"At least you didn't hit the mailbox this time."

"Yeah, well, at least I didn't hit a dozen mailboxes including an post office one that's like a federal offense or anything. Plus, you know, driving at the age of twelve."

"Hey," Henry defended, "if we lived in Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, North or South Dakota, or Wyoming I could get a permit at fourteen."

"Well, we live in Maine, Kid, and we're not moving just so you can legally drive."

"Can I illegally drive?"

"I already said 'no'."

"Do you even have a license? Doesn't your sister have it?"

"Stole it while she was making out with Hook," replied Emma, opening the driver's door. "I need to renew it too. She can figure out her own fake birth certificate and other documented existence like everyone else in town here. I'm legit. And you should be too, which means you're taking an actual test at a real DMV outside of this town!"

"Awwwwwwwe man," whined Henry as he fastened his seatbelt, "but it'll be haaaaaaaaard."

"That's the point. I'm not gonna dick around anymore or let the dicks in this family give you free passes just because you're royalty," Emma told him, pulling away from the curb. "And no more driving around Storybrooke with your grandpa or even Regina on public property, because it's against the law."

Henry slumped in his seat and asked, "So... you and your sister had a fight, huh?"

Emma blinked. "What? No."

"You're a terrible liar, Mom. That was obviously your sister's thing."

She sighed. "Fine, we had a fight. She tried to admit she'd messed some stuff up, but I was too angry to talk about it and I kind of ruined things., but then she didn't make it any better with some of the things she said. We ended up fighting about who's Sheriff," she explained, "and I just need to clear my head... or strategize... I don't know exactly. I just know that I don't know where I fit in Storybrooke - or this family - anymore, but I don't want to keep getting defensive about it. I want to figure out how to get my life and my family back too."

"You're my mom," Henry stated. "And you're Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter. You don't fit any differently than you did before."

"I don't know about that, Kid," Emma told him. "I don' think I quite found out where I fit before my idiot sister decided to run toward a time portal without any magic to close it. That was totally her influence, fighting to get control when I didn't have my magic. What did she actually think was going to happen?" she snorted. "Or maybe she subconsciously wanted to go back and kill me in the womb..."

The approached the town line, only the headlights illuminating the road ahead.

"I really can't even drive until we get to that lobster shack?" Henry tried again.

"You can be the navigator."

"That's easy," Henry chuffed, taking out his phone and asking for directions to Boston. The phone responded, _No cell signal. No off-line map available_.

"Damn it!"

Emma handed him a map and a flashlight. "These old farm roads are a bitch."

* * *

Next up: One sister takes a roadtrip to fix herself while the other tries to right a wrong.


	6. Uninvited

**Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.**

* * *

CHAPTER SIX

UNINVITED

The early morning air was cool, spotty rain showers pelting the Bug's windshield as the sky grew faintly light through the clouds.

In the passenger seat, Henry tried for the thousandth time to get comfortable, his long legs no longer really fitting in the small car, not sure if the relief at a break from his crazy family would outweigh the cramps and stiff muscles he'd have for days.

As Emma changed lanes for the off ramp, he yawned and asked, "Pit stop?"

"Not exactly. Need to pick up something."

Henry wasn't sure what to make of the cryptic response until they turned onto a long driveway about twenty minutes later and a large mansion appeared. He knew that house from the illustrations the quill had done when he'd gone back to record all the events that happened since his being given the book by Mary Margaret.

"Cruella's house?" he asked, confused. "Didn't she lose it or something?"

"The bank foreclosed. Part of her deal with your grandfather was him paying off what she owed. She had no interest in returning to the Enchanted Forest."

"Okaaaaaay, but she's dead. And she didn't have anything magical did she?"

Emma grimaced. "No, she didn't, but we're not here to loot a serial killer's stuff. The thing is, I don't fit in like I always did. Because I'm not entirely the me that I was when you found me, Kid. That was me but sort of like schizo with my sister for an anti-conscience. That was me using her darkness for stuff I want to say I wouldn't usually do, but maybe if I had my own darkness I would. Now I don't have either, so I don't really know. I'm like how that spell was supposed to make me, so I've still got that... emptiness and nothing to even try to fill it. Which I guess makes me more of a savior now than I was before, but I never wanted to be one. I'd rather just be 'Emma'. That's who's part of this family: Emma. Not The Savior."

"You want to find Lily again and take your darkness back," Henry deduced. Lily had left about six months ago with Maleficent, and everyone said it was to find Lily's father in some other realm. "But what makes you think she's here?"

"Simple detective work kid. I pulled some DMV records while my sister and Hook were playing tonsil hockey."

As the house drew closer, the Bug rounding large topiary bushes, a familiar roadster came into view. Cruella's car was parked out front.

"You didn't tell anyone, did you?" Henry deduced. "You think everyone would try to stop you if they knew."

"Wouldn't they?"

"I dunno. Maybe," conceded Henry.

"I don't want to go back to being 'The Savior' to everyone, Kid," Emma explained. "I figure that was me and my resentment about it putting my sister in therapy as much as her nature being counter-Savior-y. And it's not that I don't want to be that to everyone if they need someone to fight for them, but always having to pay the magical price to be that person because I got the label with some twisted, unnatural spell that hurt someone? Two someones including my sister? Two wrongs don't make a right, Henry, no matter how much I think my parents want to believe it can. Me being The Savior because of their selfishness doesn't cancel it out., the side-effects just make it worse for everyone."

Emma let out a breath and concluded, "So, I have to fix this. Then maybe we can all move forward."

Before Emma had even put the car into park, the front door opened and the sorceress emerged in a dressing down and curlers out of a 1940's Hollywood glam flick.

"You," Maleficent sighed, her expression pinched. "What do you want?"

"To help you and Lily," answered Emma.

"The only way you can help us is by returning what your parents stole," the ex-villainess retorted and Emma nodded.

"I know."

That took Maleficent by surprise and she uttered, "Oh... well... in that case, can I get you some coffee?"

"Do you have hot chocolate?" asked Emma.

"With cinnamon?" added Henry and Maleficent raised a brow at Emma.

"What happened to your usual Cuban style double black eye?"

Emma grimaced at the sense memory of many a cup of coffee with a shot of espresso and a shot of dark rum. "That was my evil twin sister's drink."

"Really?" uttered the ex-fairy thinking it was a joke at first, but Emma's expression was completely serious. "Well, that explains a lot then."

* * *

"Sonofa-" Regina swore to find another Swan on her doorstep entirely too early for a Saturday morning. She pulled the door open and demanded, "Unless there's a world-ending crisis, whatever it is can wait until after ten. My sister decided to stay and Granny's and I've not had a weekend to myself since Henry refused to sleep at your fuckpad or share your brother's closet-sized bedroom."

"I want to do a _séance_ ," the blonde stated, pushing her way inside while handing Regina her morning paper, the headline of which read: TWO EMMA SWANS? BROKEN CURSE REVEALS TWINS MAGICALLY FUSED IN THE WOMB and had side-by-side pictures of Emma when she became Sheriff and her sister after the Dark One/Underworld mess when she finally got her ass back to doing the job not completely focused on her family bs.

"You two didn't age well, did you?" Regina observed the marked difference. It really did look like the blonde had aged a decade in roughly a year and a half.

"We all can't have infertility potion boosted hormones to keep our skin and asses tight. Did you hear what I said?"

"Yes, you want a séance," sighed Regina. "Which can surely wait until I've gotten more sleep, had breakfast, taken a shower, and you've learned some etiquette-"

"It's about Neal."

"You're brother?"

"No, the other one!"

Regina sighed again. "Séances only work for those in The Underworld, Emma. You can't just-"

"I'm not Emma," (Not)Emma told her.

"Right, sorry. Too early in the morning. What do you want to go by today?"

"Haven't figured out what to go by yet. And I don't really give a crap if I have bad etiquette. You tried to poison my sister," said (Not)Emma, "which means you would have poisoned me, and since Henry's true love's kiss wouldn't have worked on _me_ , I'd probably have died whether or not it worked on my sister, so I'm not going to apologize for any influence I might have had on Emma standing up to you being a homicidal sociopath about gaslighting her kid. Do I care about Neal? Not so much. But I didn't like being played for a fool and framed for shit I didn't do any more than my sister. Which is why you're going to help me with a séance."

Regina rubbed her temples. "I don't follow. I told you, the soul you want to contact has to be in The Underworld. He wasn't there."

"Yeah, and when I - me and Emma - had a vision of him on the way to The Underworld he said he wasn't there, and I was cool with believing that 'cause he complicated my life with Hook and having to deal with Henry, but does it really jive that his mom's unfinished business was apologizing to him for abandoning him as a kid, but she didn't even see him? I mean, she'd just be trapped there for eternity because he somehow got an automatic pass to Heaven for no reason? And like he had no unfinished business which is just the same amount of bullshit when he didn't get to see Henry before he died? It doesn't add up."

"So why isn't your sister the one here trying to save her true love?" asked Regina, curious.

(Not)Emma shrugged. "Maybe she doesn't want to face he could be in a shitty situation and lied to her about it because he thought she'd rejected him in favor of his way hotter and more desirable step dad, what with my whole plan to split my heart with Killian."

"Always what one wants to hear from their one true love," scoffed Regina.

"Yeah, I know, I get that it's a shitty thing to say to someone you're supposed to love who died like a month earlier," (Not)Emma conceded, "which'd be reason enough for a self-depricating loser like that to just concede the fight. But it's weird. And Emma loves him."

Regina raised a brow. "Here I thought you were supposed to be empathy-challenged without your sister on your shoulder."

(Not)Emma sighed. "Yeah, well, now I've got my parents on both of my shoulders lecturing me on how rough she's got it, and it'd be a lot easier if she didn't."

"So... this is entirely selfish?"

(Not)Emma glowered. "Look, I've got true love, and even if everyone else thinks he's a dick who makes me a jerk, I love him and he loves me, and my stupid secret hopeless romantic sister and her regrets over screwing up with her true love is the reason I got up the nerve to let Killian past _my_ walls. Plus, I might have influenced her into giving up Henry for adoption. So I owe it to her. But that also means _you_ owe it to me to do this shit."

Regina let out a long-suffering sigh. "Fine. I'll have everything ready by tonight. In the meantime, how about focusing on apprehending this alchemist? I understand he attacked you and your sister. Do you have any leads?"

(Not)Emma shook her head. "Erm... no. I got a little distraction at the station-"

"You mean having sex with the pirate in your office," Regina distastefully responded.

"No, in the jail cell. Which is why I got to thinking about my sister and Neal," (Not)Emma explained, adding with a roll of her eyes, "Killian keeps trying to get me to give in to getting knocked up. Which isn't exactly romantic in a jail cell where I was only banging him to smother out Emma's memories of masturbating while pregnant in prison to fantasies of her deadbeat boyfriend."

"And here I thought you were rather recently beating your breasts in torment over the fear that you wouldn't live long enough to fulfill your duty as a woman, savior, and true love by letting that pirate scum put a baby inside you so you could start over with a cliche nuclear family happy ending like your _Leave it to Beaver_ and entirely clueless about any sexual pun there-in parents," scoffed Regina.

"My sister had me kind schizo over what a savior's duties were, okay?" huffed (not)Emma. "I thought I had to put those duties before my happy ending and if his happy ending combined with my duties... which doesn't matter because I'm not a savior. Any baby-pining was _maybe_ some subconscious guilt over influencing my sister to give up her kid and leaving her baby daddy dead so she couldn't have that cliche happy family bullshit like this town's nauseating prince and princess true love couples.

"I mean," she groaned, "I love Killian, but he'd make a worse father than I've been a mother to Henry. He has the maturity of an immature teenage boy and a nasty habit of abandoning kids out of spite and shit. I'm pretty sure he's just been brainwashed by centuries of fairy tale construct stereotypes about happy endings that dictates we can't live happily ever after unless we have a big ass fancy wedding and babies. Even though that kind of failed spectacularly for my parents, who are, honestly, pretty shitty parents themselves who shouldn't be allowed to give parenting advice and probably should have _both_ been sterilized by King George before they got the chance to ruin me and my sister's lives by tacking on the fun additional mess that even if I wanted kids, I'd probably end up with two little parasites battling it out in my uterus."

"Yes, there is that," sighed Regina. "Well, if you're in need of a sterility potion..."

(Not)Emma considered, "I might take you up on that. Especially if it'll improve my complexion. Maybe Emma's magic and the curse had some kinda bad allergic reaction to pixie dust, but our complexion is shit and it frankly creeps me out that Killian has never commented on it. I mean, I don't want him judging me on my looks."

"The way you judge him."

(Not)Emma rolled her eyes. "But I've been looking downright sickly. Pretty sure it started with Emma in Neverland. Hopefully, it was just a physical manifestation of the tole of sharing consciousness, but I don't want to look like I'm fifty when I'm forty just because of some physical molecular instability crap or whatever Whale called it."

"Yes, heaven forbid you out-age a man who uses magic pomade to try and cover up his receding hairline. You're a couple of vane idiots," Regina told her.

"And you ordered mass murder because people thought a teenage girl was prettier than you," (Not)Emma reminded as she took an apple from the bowl under the mirror. "Speaking of murderers, your sister better not decide to skip town for this. I helped her keep that kid. She owes me too."

"You accelerated her pregnancy so you could use her child as a vessel for the Dark One to free your deadbeat boyfriend which resulted in the miscarriage of the evil child she probably wanted more," Regina scoffed. "It just happened that everyone found out about your lies and your sordid plot before you could carry it out."

"Yeah," scoffed Not-Emma. "Sucks when that happens, doesn't it?"

"Just get out," the former Evil Queen grumbled, "I've had enough of your insipid family in my house uninvited."

* * *

Next up: Let the magic begin...


	7. Darkness and Light

**Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.**

* * *

CHAPTER SEVEN

DARKNESS AND LIGHT

Whatever Emma had been expecting when she saw Lily again, it wasn't the listless woman laying in a hospital style bed hooked up to IVs and with some strange skin affliction that reminded of that stuff on _Game of Thrones_.

"What's wrong with her?" asked Henry.

"As near as Rumple and Dr. Whale could tell, it's a sort of combination of magic and auto-immune disorder," answered Maleficent. "Lily showed me pictures of herself when she was younger and she obviously lost her skin pigmentation. They think that was the early stages and the disease accelerated when she first took dragon form. We'd hoped leaving Storybrooke with it's more active magic would slow the progression. We even searched through The Dragon's stock of potions brewed mixing the magic of both worlds. It helped for a few months, but the disease eventually overcame it."

"What exactly is 'your kind'?" Emma asked, never entirely clear on that.

"I was a fairy originally, as you know," answered Maleficent. "Ruel Ghorm exiled me for seeking to learn non-fairy magic and fraternizing with humans and other sentient species to learn their magic. Self-transfiguration was the magic that came most easily to me. Fairies can change their size, of course, reveal and hide their wings. We're shapeshifters by the nature of our magic, but restricted in how we express that since the Fey left our realm and returned to the lands of the gods. To tap into such Fey magic, to make the bonds our progenitors did is considered blasphemous. And so for using blood magic to bond with a dragon, thus acquiring dragon form, I was exiled. Unlike others, Tinkerbell for instance, I was too powerful for stripping my wings to take away my magic. My watered-down fairy magic, perhaps, but dragons are as ancient as the Blue Fairy, and in time I learned to control that transformation and learn others, but it was my first love, if you will, and my preferred form"

"And that's why you laid an egg as a dragon with a human baby in it?" Henry assumed.

Maleficent shook her head. "Lily was a dragonling. It was the spell that old geezer cast that forced her to take human form before she was ready, before she had hatched. And that may be where this all began. Her body is rejecting the human form but can't sustain the dragon one."

"Because she has too much darkness choking her light," said Emma.

"Perhaps."

"Why didn't you tell anyone? My parents?" Emma asked, confused. "Surely they would have agreed to do anything they could to help."

Maleficent scoffed. "Would they? Regina helped us acquire Cruella's estate after her death saw it given to Rumplestiltskin because she knew you and your parents would object to anything that would risk reducing your savior powers, even with unsavory side-effects, given how Storybrooke was under perpetual threats. I think she probably agreed, but she also felt guilty for having trapped me for all those years in dragon form."

"You never seemed to hold it against her," Emma considered. "Or me for trying to kill you, taking away your dragon form. Or trying to shoot Lily in the head, even if that was my sister. I expected you'd burn Storybrooke to the ground, not go out for coffee."

Maleficent smiled at that. "Oh, on principle it was a horrid thing what Regina did, but in practice... I kept my sanity far better that way than I think any one else in your little town of dual-identity do-gooders. I was able to... meditate in ways I hadn't tried since I was incubating my daughter, and went deeper still to an understanding I suspect few shapeshafters have of their transformation. I will never truly understanding being a dragon, of course, but I came to understand patience and acceptance of fate, however unfair it may be, that all things pass, even ancient things, to give way to newer things that one day themselves might grow ancient and replaced."

"That sounds very... Zen," said Emma.

"I suppose I also read a bit too much of The Dragon's philosophical rantings while looking for a cure," Maleficent conceded. "It's rather a pity I only briefly crossed paths with him in The Enchanted Forest. I probably could have learned a great deal from that old shapeshifter. He has quite the treaties on the consequences of taking on another's magic, for better or worse. In my youthful arrogance none of it occurred to me, the possibility that my thirst for knowledge and magic, to feel one with an ancient life form so different from my sisters, might cost my daughter her life."

"You can't just purge the dragon magic from her?" asked Henry.

"I would have to return it to the dragon I took it from, which is sadly impossible because your grandfather killed him his first day playing prince."

"Oh," winced Henry and Emma grimaced too.

Maleficent sighed and lamented, "Humans see dragons as a threat because they seek to conquer everything, but it's humans who have destroyed their nesting grounds, who have marginalized them, who have hunted them for the sport of taking their heads and hearts as trophies.

"Ruel Ghorm may have objected to the spell I undertook, but the dragon willingly shared his heart-string - which essentially makes him Lily's father in as much as fairies can have a male progenitor as I split that to create her."

"Wait... so... you just... decided to get pregnant, turned into a dragon, and made yourself a baby?" Emma uttered.

"It wasn't a 'decision'," Maleficent corrected. "Magic and the breeding cycle of dragons compelled it. It was not something I expected to happen, but it changed me, those months in dragon form, protecting my child. I changed from the embittered woman rejected by her birth family, vilified by her adoptive one, and gained hope of changing things for her, for us. It felt like magic had given me a gift, finally had shown that I wasn't eternally damned for having left the Sisterhood, for trying to make my own way. Perhaps that was just the hormones given the ultimate end, as there was a price in the end," she concluded, tucking a lock of Lily's limp hair behind her scaly, pointy ear.

"Or maybe things just got screwed up," Emma stated, emphatic. "How can it be wrong if that dragon wanted to share his heart with you? I mean, okay, I don't get the inter-species love thing given my bad experience with a flying monkey, but if some thousand year old magical lizard decides a fallen fairy is his soulmate, then neither of you should get punished for it. I'm sorry my father got duped into that mess by King George and King Midas. I'm sure if he knew that was a good dragon who was a friend of humans - or if the dragon knew he wasn't really a genocide maniac prince, it could have ended differently and Lily could have known her father and maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe Henry would have his dad here too," she concluded.

"Your family has indeed cost many people their happy endings while trying to claim their own."

Nodding, Emma conceded, "I know. But I want to try and fix that, if I can. Even if that means I'm not some mystical magical 'Savior' with a capital 'S' anymore. Being a real hero is knowing when to give up your power, right? This is the right thing to do."

"Well then," the sorceress took a breath, "let's give this a try."

"How exactly does this work?" asked Emma, pulling The Apprentice's wand from her jacket pocket.

Shrugging, Maleficent took the wand and said, "Like this, I suppose."

* * *

"It's clearly _not_ working. Can we go already?" Zelena whined at the dining room table. "Or at least serve some food!"

Regina sighed at her bitchy sister. "I'll heat up leftovers."

"So..." Snow awkwardly asked the former Wicked Witch, "how is Robin?"

"The ear infection medication seems to be working. It's a relief to pass her off on Granny for a night, though, to be perfectly honest," shrugged Zelena.

"Oh, I know. Neal had one last year. He cried for two days straight. I thought I was going to go insane!"

Hook nudged his beloved and leered, "Makes you want a little bundle of joy of your own, eh?"

The response he got was a cold glare.

"Are _you_ insane? We'd probably end up with two bundles, one of joy, one of evil and that's assuming this," she held up the gypsy charm, "prevented the evil one from murdering the good one inside of me. Why are you suddenly so obsessed with sowing your seed when you've got a bunch of illegitimate great grandkids running around? You think I'll dump you if your hair falls out? Or you think you'll lose all interest in me if I get another wrinkle? Like you wouldn't if I got fat with stretchmarks!"

"I've got nothing against wrinkles or stretchmarks, luv," Hook insisted. "I mean, I never lost interest in Milah and she was older than both of us and had born a child. She was practically ancient, rea- _owe!_ "

David shook his head as his daughter went to join Regina in the kitchen and stated, " _Mate_ , telling your fiancée that you think she's aged well because you have a thing for cougar MILFs is not getting you progeny any time soon."

"I was just trying to reassure her," groaned Hook. "I know she's self-conscious that she's not aged as... gracefully as your wife. She inherited your skin type, poor lass. Really, I suspect it's using too much makeup more recently that's doing it. I might have made some... unfortunate remarks with respect to one of those green mask things once and now she's always plastering make-up on every morning as though she doesn't believe me that I think she's perfectly shaggable with nothing more than eyeliner."

"Your eyeliner fetish is disturbing," scoffed Zelena.

"Eyeliner makes everyone look better," Hook argued, "and blondes have lighter lashes which define the eyes, and no one should demphasize Swan's eyes or her magnificent brows!"

"Can I just say," David spoke up, "that sometimes you sound _so gay_."

"You really do," Zelena agreed. "Sure you're not bise-"

Suddenly the lights flickered and went out and a wind blew through the dining room and doors slammed.

"I know that wind," shivered Snow just before a silvery mist appeared above them and coalesced into human-ish form in the corner of the room.

Just as Cora was oddly a young woman when her 'ghost' appeared, instead of grown man there stood a young boy of perhaps five or six. If not for the silver leaf pin on his cloak, the very same in the few depiction's of Rumplestiltskin's son in Henry's book, they might not have recognized the child.

"Baelfire?" Hook sputtered. "Is that really you?"

Instead of answering, the spirit lost its form and shot forward, right into Zelena's chest. The witch seized and leached and then lashed out and wrapped her hands around Hook's throat, choking the pirate and growling, "I'm going to kill you again!" until David and Snow could pry "her" off.

"Bloody hell, mate!"

"We're not mates," Not-Zelena said in a weird voice.

Hook countered, "Still mad that I lied about me and Emma shagging in Neverland? That was just to wind you up."

David and Snow glared at Hook who huffed. "What? I was engaged in a contest for your daughter's heart! And that was before I promised to play fair."

"You didn't play fair after that!" Not-Zelena/Neal growled.

"All right, fine," Hook wheezed, "but I didn't send you off to your death after saying I didn't want the peasant loser son of the Dark One to mess up my daughter's fake happiness even though I still expected you to risk your life on all manner of booby traps to help win back the castle of the woman who ruined Emma's life and fraudulently adopted and then gaslit her son from her evil sister and _then_ after said sister murdered you, name my second born after you out of guilt for being a selfish prick while using the opportunity to stand in my own spotlight of do-gooder-dom as everyone cheered me being so thoughtful as to honor your sacrifice that you might not have had to make at all if not for me wanting to throw away my first family and start over fresh without any badly dressed losers mucking it all up by reminding Emma she had parents."

Hook threw a smirking leering glare - which someone was a thing he could do - at Snow and Charming who deflated at that while Zelena's sharp eyes pinned them with an angry and hurt look.

"Yeah, that was pretty shitty of you guys," her possessor agreed.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time?" Snow squeaked out.

"It's insulting," Nealena told them, "and you should both be ashamed. Just like this bitch," he gestured to himself, "should be rotting in prison, not allowed to name her kid after the guy she raped to get pregnant, who got killed because she took her custody battle to The Underworld for an immortal dipshit she took a bike ride with once. You guys have completely fucked up ideas of how romantic love works, which you shoved down Emma's throat and you're doing the same to Henry - which is just one of the many reasons you all suck at parenting!"

"Yeah, Dr. Whale said something about that," shrugged Hook, "but I wasn't really listening. I was too busy worrying about the health of my true love that no matter what you think with your crazy Land Without Magic indoctrinated ways, is completely legit. Just happened to be it was with your true love's identical twin sister who'd been sharing her body for about thirty years."

"Why do you think I was trying to strangle you?" Nealena growled. "Every time I try to do something for Emma's good, we both get completely fucked! But you keep getting fucking free passes!"

"So... you _are_ in The Underworld?" Snow asked.

Blue eyes glared at her again and rolled. "Yeah, _obviously_. I didn't want Emma to come looking. I didn't want her looking down here for _anyone_ so I told her I was in a good place, but she just wouldn't let go of her infatuation with saving Hook.

"Just the thought of you," his glare turned to Hook, "suffering after trying to murder her entire family and calling her a useless orphan cramping your style and impersonating her son to taunt her was too much for her sister to bare."

"What can I say? Swan sees the good beneath my darkly handsome exterior," shrugged Hook.

"She's mentally unbalanced," sighed David, "and has a sex and alcohol addiction."

"Your point?"

"Neal," Snow prompted, "what happened after you warned Emma.?"

"I got her a message just before you guys arrived. Which was also just before Hades found me and locked me up," sighed Nealena, "where I remained until Hades was killed and Zeus released all of the prisoners he'd kept locked away so as not to interfere with you guys."

Hook snorted. "Thought you were good at lock-picking. Even I got out with one hand, mate!"

"He only put people in that useless dungeon that he wanted to escape, you idiot," groaned Nealena.

"He relocated Megara - not that bright of a girl - to get the lot of you chased by his three headed mutt and 'save' people so _you_ ," he said to Hook, "would have to carve names so that _he_ could then erase everyone's names so _no one_ would be suspicious that his rigged 'true love' test was just meant to distract Emma so she couldn't use her savior powers to stop him from fixing that damn crystal and escaping to Storybrooke."

"Huh... that does actually make more sense," Hook conceded. "So... why haven't you moved on? Is it because Hades tossed your mum in the River of Lost Souls? I do feel a bit bad about not even getting to see her."

Nealena rolled his/her eyes. again "No you don't. You replaced your obsession with my mother with your obsession for Emma - or her sister - like the sociopath you are. And, really, you were obsessed with my father in between the both of them. You're a sicko psycho, man. And of all the regrets I have in my life - and death - the biggest one is that instead of moving on, I told Zeus to save your syphilitic ass!"

"Wait," Hook sputtered, " _you're_ the reason I got brought back?"

Neal/Zelena scoffed. "You actually thought it was that you were remotely _worthy_ because you decided at the last second not to murder Emma's entire family after murdering the most powerful wizard in history and getting her to cover it up for you? Like that would make up for all of your murdering and raping and just being a massive douchebag since the moment you developed a drinking problem and got free of your bully of a big brother keeping your inner asshole in check?"

"Erm..."

"Emma loved you," Nealena stated with a sigh. "Or I _thought_ it was her who wanted to split her heart with you. All I've ever wanted was for Emma to find happiness. I screwed that up for her by trusting August. And when I saw the way she looked at you, after Pan recast the Curse, I knew I'd lost my chance. Didn't mean I wouldn't try to see my son again, but Emma seemed to have moved on. So even if I could be sent back, she'd already chosen you."

"But that wasn't Emma," sighed Snow. "That was her sister who has the unhealthy mutual fixation with Hook."

"True love!" Hook interjected.

"Whatever," David groaned. "The point is, _Emma_ still loves you. She misses you."

"You think I don't know that _now_?" Neal/Zelena sighed and said, "Our love's been a series of tragedies. I just want Emma and Henry to be happy. Tell them that I love them."

"Wait," David interjected, "you haven't moved on. If your mother was your unfinished business-"

But it was too late, the lights were flickering, Zelena seized, and then after one jerking middle finger in Hook's direction, the silvery substance flew out of the Wicked Witch and dissipated like smoke.

Zelena looked at her raised hand and asked, "Is this directed at you or me?"

"Does it matter," muttered Hook, slouching in his chair. "I bloody literally owe _Baelfire_ my life. How am I supposed to pay that back? _Damn it!"_

"You could start by staying away from Emma and Henry," Snow told him.

Just then the door to the kitchen burst open, the quasi-evil Swan sister demanding, "We heard shouting. Did it work?"

* * *

"Did it work?" Emma groaned, sitting up after she was pretty sure she'd passed out when it felt like someone was ripping her heart out and not the magical way while simultaneously crushing the air out of her lungs.

Neither Maleficent nor Henry answered, but they didn't need to. Already the scales were fading from Lily's skin which was, at first, pale, but then darkened. After a moment her eyelids fluttered open and she rasped out, "Mom?"

"Oh, my little girl!" Maleficent cried, enveloping her in a hug.

Lily returned it, confused, then spotted the blonde standing off to the side looking woozy. "Emma?"

"Ah, hey," Emma responded uncertainly. "I had no idea you were sick. No one told me."

"Didn't want to be a bother," Lily told her. "Storybrooke, The Enchanted Forest, whatever, needed you to be The Savior."

"I don't know about 'need'," Emma argued. "It's what they believed they needed because of what that spell made me at your expense, what Rumplestiltskin did with the result, what they wanted so they wouldn't have to try so hard to help themselves. Because of that, people died who didn't have to, people they could have helped if it hadn't all been on me. I'm sorry your life got messed up. I'm sorry my family didn't care. Hopefully, now, we can finally be who we were supposed to be."

"Hold on," blinked Lily, "you mean-"

"We reversed the spell that turned Emma into a savior," Maleficent nodded. "You don't have to struggle against an overwhelming darkness anymore, Lily."

"And maybe I'll stop getting burned by too much light," said Emma.

* * *

Next up: Underbrooke has seen some changes.


	8. The Undertaker

**Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.**

* * *

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE UNDERTAKER

A dreamcatcher in a window suddenly glowed bright gold and shot forth a blast of light that solidified into the standing form of Neal Cassidy, half dressed in the suit he'd been putting on when his soul was violently summoned to another realm.

After taking a moment to get acclimated, Neal looked around his apartment - a perfect replica of his real life one in Manhattan - and wondered again at how fucked up his life - and afterlife - was, how he just kept making sacrifices that didn't end the way he thought they would.

He'd given up Heaven for _Emma's sister's fuckboy_.

Her fuckboy that he never thought he'd see again, that was for sure... or at least not until Hook made a return trip to The Underworld and he could throw his _arse_ in the River of Lost Souls and pretend it was an accident.

Neal sighed and went back to putting on his tie, because this was Purgatory and in limbo he couldn't go to work in sweatpants and a hoodie or take a sick day and just stay curled up in bed hoping that this 'night' would be different and he'd actually get to sleep instead of laying awake, muddling over all of the mistakes in his life over and over until despite not having real physical form he ended up with a headache because eternal daylight was definitely worse than the eternal night of Neverland and he was starting to feel like Al Pacino in _Insomnia_.

He had a particularly bad now, though maybe it was a result of the soul-summoning.

Neal hadn't considered that Emma's family would try a séance. After all, they were _supposed_ to believe he'd move on, beyond being contacted from the land of the living. Now they would surely tell her and he didn't know which option was more disheartening: that she would come looking for him or that she wouldn't.

"The Universe hates me," Neal said aloud as he finished with the morning routine, buttoning his vest that went with his suit - his only suit - that he'd worn to his first day at work in a job he never thought he'd get, actually doing something he loved - and that he'd barely had long enough to feel like he was finally living instead of just existing before Emma tracked him down and thus the beginning of his end.

Looking at the large charcoal sketch on his bookshelf, Neal figured that death was just something he'd been unknowingly running from since his father signed that contract to save him from that snakebite as a little boy, the choice that broke up the illusion of his happy nuclear family for good. Death had been stalking him ever since, but by being part of his darkly immortal father's story, Neal supposed he was always managing to avoid being caught. His death sentence had been stayed but not commuted, delayed until his father could find him - and then be the death of him.

Which just made it all the more fucking tragic. It was his father's doing that spared his life twice, not his. And why did he have to receive the ultimate punishment for trying to follow his son's maternal family motto while Hook went off to be a selfish pity-party-throwing prick for a year but ended up hailed a hero and some champion of true love worthy of being dragged out of Hell by the very family that had refused to offer Neal help?

It just felt like every time he'd tried to take destiny into his own hands, it had blown up in not only his face, but hurt the people around him, and the only thing Neal could figure was that it went back to that day he got bitten by that fucking snake.

Outside the open window the sky was its perpetual hazy red, and Neal wished for rain as he pulled it shut. He wished for a reprieve from the unending disappointments that made up his existence. His unbeating heart that wasn't even real, because the real one was rotting in a coffin in Storybrooke, ached regardless of its illusionary existence.

Was it really better to have loved and lost then to have never loved when loving and losing meant watching someone else get the life and love that you were taken from, watch some get saved again and again like some sort of sick joke while the people you loved and gave your life for forgot you and replaced you?

Grimacing, Neal picked up the crystal ball on the nightstand and shoved it in his messenger bag along with his (replica) phone that didn't actually work as a phone here, but he had a few pictures and videos of Henry and even one with Emma at Granny's after they got back from Neverland.

It was easier to look at then watching the present unfolding inside that crystal ball. And finding out the truth too late to change his fate.

The story of his life.

After grabbing his keys - more habit than necessity - Neal headed out into this distopian New York City that seemed at times a merging of its worst periods, from the 1800's tenaments to the 1970's crime and murder spree. No one ventured far south beyond mid-town as this version of the city came complete with the rubble of the World Trade Center, still with perpetually smoldering pockets. Like 'Underbrooke' with its burned out cars and demolished clock tower, it seemed that no matter what it resembled, The Underworld had to reflect some broken version of reality, whether a snapshot of some actual disaster or not.

Afterlife still went on, though, whether it was in a faux small town shaped to resemble one created by a curse, a replica of a kingdom that had imprisoned thousands of souls brainwashed to worship one man, or a likeness of a city that never slept and now had skies that never grew dark and were always tinged red - and a Central Park that looked more like a renaissance fair than it the real world, populated by those who had no interest in acclimating to more modern conditions - or were actually sentenced to live in one of the Central Park slums.

Those being punished aside, the residents of The Underworld, whether they lived in high rises or huts, all seemed to transition seamlessly from backdrop to backdrop. When you were dead, it was hard to care overmuch what purgatory looked like, Neal supposed. Souls were either focused on making amends for what they'd done in life like some sort of twelve step program or in deep denial that they'd done anything wrong.

"Hey, you!" a voice called out from a park bench and Neal sighed.

Some... some souls were just assholes.

Neal tossed some change into the homeless man's cup.

"I don't want your fucking charity, arshole!" the guy shot back from his bench nest of newspapers, same as always. "I want my kingdom! It's mine! MINE!"

Neal paid him no mind, continuing on his way...

* * *

And the empty beer can the vagrant hurled in his direction went astray, instead clobbering a hung-over Cruella De Vil on the way out of a nearby pub.

"You again!" she snarled. "Hit me with another one of your cans, you filthy vagrant-"

"And you'll what? Throw me in The Styx?" he taunted.

Cruella glared harder at the former King Arthur who was now the resident crazy homeless guy of Central Park West.

"Just because I can't personally send you into the drink doesn't mean I can't find someone else willing. I'm sure there are plenty of souls around here who'd gladly send you to eternal torment, Artie," she sneered before amending, "Just be glad Zeus himself didn't toss you in or sentence you to something more miserable than being a vagrant for your crimes."

"That's rich," Arthur scoffed, "from a woman who murdered her parents and would have gone on killing just for kicks if magic hadn't stopped you. I bet that smarts, doesn't it? Even here you can't throw your enemies in the drink!"

"But at least I can drink," Cruella shot back. "And I wasn't talking about the crimes you committed while your heart was still ticking, darling. I meant thinking 'finders keepers' was how one becomes Lord of The Underworld. What's the old saying... who's more the fool, the fool or the fool who follows him? And that would be you, Artie, sitting your butt on the throne of an absentee immortal and just assuming that made you the new king of purgatory who could shape it in your arcane fairy tale kingdom image."

"Someone had to take control after Hades left," Arthur argued. "Someone with experience leading."

"Experience brainwashing you mean. The gods have standards, darling," Cruella told him with a roll of her eyes while fishing through her coat for mini bar bottles of booze. "It's why they're eating ambrosia on Mt. Olympus and we're battling rats for slices of pizza. And also why they get to do all the murdering and raping and incesty stuff without punishment while we suffer... _thankfully_ with indoor plumbing. I'll take flushing my shit in a public toilet over fancy balls in your castle any day, darling."

"I still don't see how exactly that ineloquent peasant trash has more of a right than I do," the former king whined.

Cruella rolled her eyes again and lit a cigarette. "He's the son of the Dark One, darling. This place was founded on keeping that immortal monstrosity that the gods stupidly unleashed on the mortal world in check. That, and he made the ultimate sacrifice for true love. What did you do? Rape your wife for years, imprison her true love, conspire to murder your former best friend, get killed while plotting to take over Storybrooke, and get dragged along by a narcissistic manwhore into an underground cave whereupon, after managing to not fall in the acid bath of eternal torment, you deemed yourself a worthy monarch of all uncreation. It hardly takes a genius to pick between the two. Most of us don't have syphilis eating our brains and a sympathetic erection for misogynist villains with narcissistic personality disorder."

Arthur smirked. "Oh, you're hilarious. And like you were never plotting. You wanted that quill to write yourself back to life. As if some child could. It was stolen from Mt. Olympus. Mortals were never meant to have it. Certainly not teenage brats or serial killers."

"I see, this is you trying to prove you have both dirt on me and vital information so we can team up and you can stab me the back," scoffed Cruella. "Darling, I know all there is to know. Mortals were never meant to control fire, either, and now all that's left of poor Prometheus is a pathetic little spark fueled by wet panties that instead of destroying the Dark One was easily manipulated by Rumplestiltskin into making him an even bigger and badder Dark One. The gods unleashed destruction upon that which they helped create by misplacing their toys in our sandbox and now they cling to what little control they still have by keeping us here in their kennel like unwanted strays and duping the masses into thinking this is the fate we earned, the natural step that comes after life. And I suppose the living think when we finally move into that pretty white light we go to a farm upstate for retired souls! Hardly!

"We're nothing but toys for overgrown children, darling," Cruella shrugged. "But one day that will end. All curses do. And two and a half millennia is a _long_ time for a curse to sustain itself, even with the belief of the gods behind it. And when it does end... I'll be ready and waiting to take full advantage!"

"To what, get the classiest fire pit to Hell?" asked Arthur.

"Just buy yourself some deodorant!"

Cruella tossed some coins in Arthur's cracked Holy Grail, took a swig from a mini bottle of gin, and sauntered to her car. That idiotic ex-monarch was not going to ruin the one scrap of hope that kept her from going insane in this wasteland of vacant skyscapers and empty streets.

* * *

Neal's mood was not particularly improved when he got to The Central Library, but then he couldn't say his mood was all that great when he was alive and visiting the real library. One good thing about New York was that most people functioned daily while in a low-grade depression, so no one ever asked if he was okay.

With a sigh, he set his messenger bag on a table and took in his rather stuffy and austere headquarters. Sometimes he wished he'd picked Coney Island, but this place was more logical for his intentions... and, anyway, anything beyond Manhattan didn't really exist and while there was a certain _Inception-_ esque quality to what he supposed might as well be called Underhattan, it was easier to keep it more-or-less the same layout as the real city... just with the augmenting of the rivers to account for Lamentation, Woe, Forgetfulness, Fire, and the River of Unbreakable Oath/Hate/Lost Souls (AKA the one everyone feared also known as The Styx).

Unfortunately for Neal, he'd taken his oath to Zeus in the latter. Taking a dip in that green soup had made Achilles virtually invincible, and so it also made Neal immune to being tossed in by some unhappy constituent, but it also tied his soul to The Underworld.

Presumably, if he reigned long enough and well enough, he could become a god or demi-god, eat some Ambrosia up at Mt. Olympus and get physical form that existed beyond the realms of the gods, his heart back with benefits as had happened with others like Persephone - and was something, of course, Zeus had done for his son and might yet with Hercules' girlfriend... which on the one hand was fair since Zeus forcing the kid to undertake that trial got them both killed, but on the other was serious favoritism that had a number of people down here ticked off.

Not that Mt. Olympus was as great as people thought.

Neal could visit Mt. Olympus for realm-supervisory-related meetings, and it was really just lots of white marble buildings with colonnades and fountains and people in togas having feats and orgies. They were really into orgies. And incest. Zeus had married his own sister after all, and then had his daughter by his mistress marry Hades and was totally cool with his brother raping the girl until her mother finally rescued her.

So, it wasn't like Zeus had voiced any moral objection to sending Hook back to the land of the living when Neal had made the request. The gods were basically a bunch of misogynist pricks who schemed all kinds of shit behind the backs of the goddesses that they tried to keep in their place to varying degrees of success. Being immortal didn't mean being _moral_. Which made those meetings pretty disheartening. Mt. Olympus, The Underworld, The Elysian Fields, Atlantis, were all basically run by a family of two millennia old self-absorbed pricks who took a disturbing "white man's burden" approach to overseeing the matters of mortals and their souls, just replacing the "white" with "mostly white and immortal". Poor unevolved little mortals needed their stewardship, their purgatory, their trials, their punishment and rewards to one day far far in the future be as the gods themselves.

Neal wasn't exactly clear how that all got fucked up, how the magical worlds got out of step with time in, say, the so-called Land Without Magic, or how/why/when the people in them essentially had their souls enslaved to the gods by writing their stories down. Sadly, even those Land of Untold Stories people hadn't been able to escape thanks to Emma's family and Henry's new-found calling. That loophole, that haven, had been transported to Storybrooke and their stories finished, returned as property of what amounted to the Mt. Olympus Publishing Company.

They weren't saved. They were damned.

They were _all_ damned.

And now with Henry as The Author writing stories that tied people to The Land Without Magic, people were showing up here who _really_ shouldn't be.

Some bike messenger who'd tossed pennies in that fountain during Henry's speech got hit by a car last week and showed up here - the third person after another speech attendee was shot in a mugging and a guy staying in that hotel room suffered a heart attack - which led to another big mess at the Halls of Justice to which he wasn't invited to discuss if there was some workaround of The Book magic to exclude anyone born in The Land Without Magic outside of Storybrooke or prevent Henry from writing anything that included people not of the designated magical worlds.

As much as the gods loved lording over humans and other mortal sentients, The Underworld was getting quite full - one of the reasons for upscaling from a setting like Storybrooke and something more modern than Camelot or whatever Hades had it before. "The Bad Place" that made Rikers look like paradise was even more crowded, and since, for some reason - maybe how The Authors chose to record things with some dramatic artistic license - an unusual majority of souls were, well, assholes who were given at least some length of sentence either in Tartarus or what amounted to probation or community service here in The Underworld, things were getting pretty out of balance. And when the realms of the gods were out of whack, magic itself in the lands under their stewardship started to break down... as evidenced by a number of previously impossible things like time travel, two Dark Ones, and his father becoming an _uber_ Dark One.

Plus the whole two portals in Manhattan thing being bad for the fabric of reality.

Neal sighed.

If he had known all of the bullshit he'd have to put up with, he never would have made that deal with Zeus. He'd have moved on to The Elysian fields were he could have been given the option to be reincarnated and maybe have a chance at a life that didn't suck, since he had to have built up some good karma with his suffering in this past life.

Okay, maybe he still would have made the deal because he wanted Emma to be happy and he thought Emma wanted Hook for that, but he'd have at least known what he was getting into when he shackled his soul to this place, this job, to being Zeus' bitch.

It could be worse, Neal supposed. He could be stuck with Charon's job, ferrying souls from the various storybook worlds - and the occasional freaked out bike messenger - bound to The Underworld by the magical quill. That guy also had to check in on the souls tossed in The Styx which was _really_ crowded to the point that he couldn't make a trip without the tormented trying to pull any new arrivals in.

Of course, Neal's mother was one of those tormented souls.

He was conflicted about Milah. She'd hurt him badly, but she'd also spent the last 300 years turning Hades' punishment into something she'd actually, by all accounts, taken very seriously. In the Book of Judgement, the tally beside her name had been in her favor to get paroled after she completed her unfinished business of apologizing to him. She could have gotten sent to Elyssium, and even if it most likely would have been in a servant position until she'd proven that she was truly reformed and worthy of happiness in the Afterlife, anything was better than existing in The River of Lost Souls.

None of the souls that Emma and her family or Hades by their meddling had gotten tossed in there deserved to be, but Neal, even as Lord of the Underworld, couldn't free them so they could be justly tried. At least, not yet. Maybe if magic broke down even further more loopholes would appear...

So, for now, Neal went about his administrative duties of checking The Book of the Dead for new arrivals and departures. People arrived every day; he didn't need to personally greet most of them as they had relatives or friends here to help them adjust. People left less frequently to the Halls of Justice to have their soul judged, some on return trips after being sent back to The Underworld for extra time to contemplate their lives or resolve matters with others who'd recently died. Those who'd left permanently had records of their pardons or sentences.

Cora, for instance, was in Tartarus to continue her mill working punishment in a far more horrific venue while her husband had been allowed to take a servant role in Elyssium, serving the king he helped murder.

It was a little known fact that Hades had set up the portal to the Halls of Justice as a prank on those he knew would be damned: everyone saw a mirage of their perfect happy ending after life... only for the villains to step off the boat at the docks for the Halls of Justice and have three justices shatter their false hope of fake redemption.

Liam Jones had been sentenced to 104 drownings, the number of people he mass murdered by drowning, to be followed by three centuries, the amount of time he'd spent in The Underworld not being remotely remorseful, as a cabin boy on the ship that patrolled Tartarus, captained by, of course, Davey Jones, perhaps some ancestor who got an eternal sentence for his many horrific crimes... that apparently weren't quite horrific enough to end up being tossed in The Styx.

Neal tossed aside the particular book that recorded those souls, not having the stomach today to see which psychopaths had "moved on" to join his mother. He had the authority to overstep the justices and send souls there directly, but it wasn't something he took pleasure in and did only to protect the citizens of The Underworld from those truly evil individuals who would ever only see their unfinished business as inflicting more pain - even while hating that he was adding more torment to those souls trapped there without just cause.

"Late night?"

The voice caused Neal to startle and he turned toward a plump redhead pushing a breakfast cart.

"Sorry," Johanna apologized. "You just look like you had a rough one, M'Lord."

"You could say that. And don't call me 'M'Lord'," Neal sighed. "I told you, 'Neal' is fine. I'll even take 'Baelfire' over that."

"I'm a woman of tradition," Johanna argued, "and you're a man of title, even if it was earned rather than inherited."

"I don't know about earned. More like foolishly accepted for love," Neal told her with a grimace. "I just keep losing. I mean are some people just supposed to lose? For balance in the universe? Like are there just some people on Earth who are supposed to be here just to make it easier for the winners?

"I think it's a symptom of the way things are, not the way they're supposed to be," Johanna replied, brows furrowing in question.

Neal let out a sigh and explained, "Turns out Emma has an evil twin. They were magically merged before birth and thanks to Zelena taking away Emma's magic, her sister took control. So it was _her sister_ who came here for Hook, not Emma."

"Well, that's tragic irony for you," scoffed Johanna with a sympathetic look. "Like trying to cheer up your former employer with a birthday present and by doing so getting targeted by a psychopath who throws you off a clock tower to your death less than a day later. And Snow White doesn't even visit my grave! I want to think it's because she feels too guilty, but considering she didn't even _try_ to seek me out down here, I don't know..."

Neal winced. Johanna, like him, and others connected to Emma's family had been 'sequested' by Hades so only those he wanted could 'interfere' as part of his escape plan. The older woman's unfinished business was nothing required for her to move on, though, not now that Cora had already been judged, but she'd stayed to help him - and maybe some for the Stroybrooke gossip he was able to relay. Neal suspected she was looking for just a crumb of evidence that the family she'd faithfully served even remembered her.

"Sucks when it seems the people you were trying to help don't give a shit about you anymore," Neal nodded. "Also sucks to find out maybe they do, but it's too late now to matter." He snorted. "Evil Twin. That just figures, I guess."

"Considering James, I suppose it does, though who'd have guessed when the good ones generally die?" Johanna mused, then amended, "I had a cousin twice removed who birthed an Evil Twin, you know. It was quite a horrific thing. She died after the birth. The midwife tried some potions and such to squelch the curse. It almost worked. She made it to term with both twins, but when she went into labor the curse reasserted itself and the good one was still-born. The healer cut the babe's chest open and there was just a pile of ash. He drown the evil one in a nearby river. I thought to look my cousin up here, but she'd moved on. She was a good, kind soul who didn't deserve to have been ravished by some scoundrel and die in such a way."

"Speaking of scoundrels," Neal realized the time, "I really should see to the prisoner."

Johanna grimaced at that. "I don't know why you don't just throw him in the drink."

"Zeus forbids it."

"He's dangerous. There's nothing worse than evil that masquerades as good," Johanna insisted. "He's ruined many lives. If anyone should be sentenced without trial to that river, it's him."

"No one's saying he won't be once we know what he's been planning," Neal told her and took his bagel from the tray. "Thanks for breakfast."

"Neal," she told him pointedly, "You're a good and brave man. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise. Especially that git!"

"Yeah, but I'm not a hero. Or a legend either," he countered, "and thanks to that damned quill, those are the only kind that matter."

Johanna had no refute for that and Neal left her, walking quickly to the bank of elevators that went down to a basement dungeon lair that very much resembled Hades digs down to the bubbling green river... that probably was a fair approximation of New York's sewer system.

From the main cavern, Neal headed toward the dungeons, coming across a very powerful figure armed with a sword, a shaggy beard and a fierce face.

"Lord Baelfire," the figure greeted in passing.

Neal didn't bother trying to correct him and offered a nod. "Mors," he returned, Thanatos' nickname, just before the not-exactly-a-god being vanished in a cloud of black smoke.

The guy was the "son of Night and the twin brother of Sleep". As the personification of death itself, it was his duty to severe souls from their physical bodies so Charon could ferry them here. What little free time he had, he spent mostly in The Underworld since he was also very unpopular with the gods as the great majority of them found the administrative duties of having dominion over humans tedious and boring.

They all wanted someone to blame for the sheer number of mortal souls that were filling up their realms, _particularly_ Tartarus since it was designed only to imprison the Titans, but was now overflowing with human murderers and rapists like a privately run maximum security prison. Poor Thanatos was often the scapegoat.

But it wasn't his fault. It was those mortals who meddled in magic and the altering of destiny for their own ends, who twisted and bent and even managed to break laws of magic and nature, creating prices so high that even innocents got swept up in the universe's attempt to restore balance.

Neal was going to see such a corrupted soul, a man he was pretty sure was only spared a pit in Tartarus with his name on it because his crimes were so many, so severe, and so far-reaching that soul-annihilation using the Olympian Crystal was probably the only sentence he could receive.

And, of course, the prisoner seemed to know it - but also didn't seem that bothered.

Neal reached the cell a minute later and its occupant emerged from the shadows with a deceptively innocent grin.

"My Lord, what brings you here today?"

* * *

AN: Did you expect Neal would be Hades' replacement? And who is the prisoner? "One good thing about New York is that most people function daily while in a low-grade depression" is from _Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?_ by Mindy Kaling. "I just keep losing..." is from a scene in Atlanta between Earn and a fellow bus passenger.

Next up: Neal has a chat with the prisoner while Emma and Henry go on a quest.


	9. The Artist & The Prisoner

**Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.**

* * *

CHAPTER NINE

THE ARTIST & THE PRISONER

Their first morning back in Manhattan Emma and Henry had sorted through Neal's apartment looking for anything that would shed some light on the life he'd lived. Robin, unfortunately, had trashed all of his identification and other papers - probably at Zelena's urging - so there were no bank statements that would point in the direction of a safe deposit box or paycheck stubs that would indicate where Neal had worked.

Thankfully, Emma did find a business card in a pocket of a black messenger bag that Robin must have been using from the filled-out employment applications and fake I.D.s Regina had made for him. The card, for an upscale publishing company in midtown, didn't jive with the rest.

A woman with severely cut hair and glasses far more expensive and flattering than Emma's met them at the reception desk while picking up her fancy Starbucks order and introduced herself as the head of the Graphic Art Department.

"Yes, Neal Cassidy," she nodded. "He was an odd case. Never actually applied, but one of our editors happened on him in Central Park and liked his portfolio. He worked here for six months or so then took a leave of absence for a family emergency and we never heard back. One of our interns even went by his apartment after his phone was disconnected. The building's super said his apartment had been recently bought by his father. That's all we ever found out. It was a disappointment, really. I was going to promote him. He showed the illustrative talent as well as a good head for numbers that could have gotten him my job one day, or at another company. I wondered if he'd gotten poached, but he didn't seem the type to just go off the grid like that, leave without further notice."

Emma almost smiled wryly at how much that actually was like Neal. Or had been. Instead she explained with a frown, "He passed away, actually."

"Yeah," scowled Henry. "My aunt-"

"Neal took time off to see his sister," Emma ad-libbed before Henry could tell some sordid magical murder tale, "and help out their father who was having heart problems, but it turned out Neal's fiancée was a con artist living with some other guy. They were after his father's money and Neal ended up getting shot in an altercation."

"How horrible," the bespeckled woman gasped before amending, "I did meet that fiancée of his once. I remember him going on about her training for marathons or some such thing. Personally, I didn't like her. She gave off a vibe like she was after something, but Neal certainly didn't have much to go after for someone like that. Of course... I had no idea his father was wealthy. He never talked about his family other than saying his mother had passed when he was young and he'd had some falling out with his father years ago."

Henry snorted lightly at that and Emma asked, "We're just trying to find out more about Neal's life here in New York. We... we were estranged for a long time. Henry wanted to know more about his dad."

"Well, that's all I can really tell you," the woman replied. "That editor doesn't work here anymore and, as I said, Neal never filled out an application or gave us a resume. I think Steve's at Pendant now. Maybe he could help you."

* * *

"My Lord, what brings you here today?"

"Cut the crap, old man," Neal addressed The Apprentice while crushing down his unease at the Hannibal Lector vibes the guy projected.

"Always so pleasant!"

Neal glowered. The old sorcerer had given him the creeps since he appeared in The Underworld, but it wasn't until he got Hades' job that Neal had access to his books and the records of all the man's crimes against humanity, magic, worlds, time... the list went on. He'd intentionally unleashed The Darkness from Neal's father to attack Emma, for instance, though it didn't seem he had intended to die himself in the process and so became more obsessed that Cruella deVil with escaping The Underworld, having used her as his pawn to get Henry the quill. He hadn't, however, gotten Neal's son to write him back to life, but instead began some convoluted con that involved murdering the god Morpheus and using his dream powers to make Rumplestiltskin and Belle believe they were having dreams of their unborn child who didn't want them together as part of a plan to basically soul-swap with Neal's half brother by doing _something_ that involved Henry having the quill, the dreams, and The River of Fire where the Furies ultimately captured him.

It was some kind of big deal that had the gods worried but probably wouldn't have amounted to the manhunt mess it had if Neal's father and step-mother hadn't actually believed their two week old zygote was sentient and could manifest in adult form with fully functional thoughts and opinions! Frankly, he had to wonder if everyone in Storybrooke had been severely brain-damaged since his death - maybe it was the time travel thing slowly unraveling reality with compounding paradoxes or maybe Emma's sister as The Dark One had made those dreamcatchers wrong and fucked up their brains - because it kind of hurt his brain that his step-mother had been that laughably stupid and his father that sadly gullible... and to this day oblivious that their kid had never actually been a powerful dream master self-named after a deity with any sort of opinion about anything other than his poopy diaper.

Regardless of why the people Neal had left behind turned into morons, and whatever The Apprentice's ultimate plan there, he'd had his stolen powers stripped away by Zeus and was shackled down here where it had become Neal's task to interrogate him and find out exactly what he was up to.

"Did you know that Snow White was carrying twins when you cast that spell?" Neal demanded.

The Apprentice stood a bit straighter and tipped his head. His scraggly beard and wizard robes that had once given him a wise Dumbledore look now gave himself something of a crazy Taliban guy look and one had to wonder if he didn't have some similarly fucked up ideology behind all of his sketchy actions.

"Have her daughters finally come undone then?" the old geezer asked, smiling a little.

Glaring, Neal confirmed, "Yes, they have. You knew, and you didn't say anything. Did you also know that Emma's sister took control after Zelena took her magic?"

"And thus her heart while subverted by her sister's was susceptible to being darkened - and plucked out by anyone," shrugged The Apprentice. "Anyone with a brain should have been able to figure out that something drastic had changed with The Savior when the cardinal rules no longer applied. But, of course, how could I warn anyone when your father had trapped me in that hat?"

"You had plenty of time before then to send a note. I managed that when I was mostly dead," Neal argued. "Plus, you apparently can just jump realms at will since you showed up to turn Lily into a stalking psychopath for no apparent reason other than to put her on a collision course with Emma."

"Not with Emma. Her sister."

"So, what, you wanted Emma's sister to kill Maleficent's child? Or you hoped Lily would kill Emma's Evil Twin?"

"I have my reasons," the old man shrugged, "and you don't need to know them."

"You were trying to get Merlin, your own mentor, killed," Neal accused. "And you wanted my son to take over for Isaac. And I _know_ you know that being The Author is not some glorious task. You duped a teenage boy into helping reap more souls for this realm, souls from a world the gods don't even want here. When he refused the first time, you cornered him down here and used some bullshit about un-murdering Cruella cleansing Emma's soul. I know she was working with you-"

"And intending to stab me in the back, literally, most-likely," smirked the old man.

Neal narrowed his eyes. "I can't say that I blame her. Henry's not recording history, he's writing an unbreakable contract that gives the gods the authority to bless or damn anyone who gets their story penned by that quill in one of those creepy books. Anyone who knew that would want the power to have themselves written out of it."

The Apprentice smirked. "Alas, instead the lad added to it. I must admit, it was quite amusing how delighted he was to help include his uncle's story. That sweet little lullaby might as well have been your namesake's viper.

"But that's not my fault," he insisted. "If Snow White and Prince Charming weren't the worst parents in The Enchanted Forest, they would have been home with their son rather than tagging along with their morally corrupt daughter to help her save a syphilitic alcoholic rapist. If they were actually good parents, they wouldn't have stood for that mentally defective girl to come here at all and talked some sense into her rather than their 'love justifies all means' drivel until they failed, and then trying some 'you need to learn how to grieve but don't blame yourself for all of the things that are clearly your fault' codswallup. Those two are complete and utter fools who were asking to be taken advantage of that day in the forest."

"You _wanted_ Isaac to trick them. _He_ was _your_ pawn," Neal accused.

"We're all someone's pawn, Baelfire."

"Maybe, but you're clearing the board more than most. You wanted to ensure Emma was born The Savior but with a stowaway bizarro version of her that was apathetic enough to let Henry wander around here unsupervised so you could appeal to his adolescent need to be as important as his 'legendary' family."

"He is quite easily manipulated into abandoning his views for the opposite," chuckled The Apprentice. "One nonsensical peptalk from his auntie and he was back on 'Team Magic' and bringing all of those free literary folk back into the fold to be judged by jokers and fools who give fealty to an immortal himbo, not to mention a few extras from your second adoptive world."

"Fucking with the laws of magic and the interconnectedness of realms like that is a serious crime, old man," Neal reminded.

"Oh, I'm well aware," he shrugged. "I knew I'd end up here eventually. But don't pretend you've any love for your keeper or that _he_ wasn't using _you_ just as much. Gods know _all_ in the hearts and minds of mortals. You think Zeus had no idea that it wasn't Emma who came for that pirate? But Hades was about to make a play for Olympus and had to be stopped so Zeus needed a new warden and you were willing. It mattered not to him that you were acting on falsehoods, on truths he knew but chose not to disclose to ensure he got what he wanted. You're his bitch, boy. Everyone is. And there are no magical pruning shears that can sever your soul from this realm and turn you back into an ordinary loser."

Glowering, Neal inquired, "So, what, this was all about taking down Olympus?"

"Oh, let the gods have their mountain. But having dominion over us all? Why do you think I hoarded all of those empty books? Why do you think I ensured the ones already filled were brought to that other world, hidden in a place where you - or your son - would find them. Those books need to be unbound, and not just in a such a way that unreliable narrators can insert their own pages. We're all damned by that quill and ink, by the pages bound with the golden threads of Olympus - which makes them quite hard to destroy. Not even The River of Fire could burn the pages your boy left. Perhaps the Olympian Crystal could have taken care of this mess, but, alas, that story took a detour."

"You mean a man got murdered and a portal was opened in Manhattan that's further destabilized the barrier between realms," scoffed Neal. "And you don't sound so concerned. Are you looking to free mortals from the gods' dominion or just destroy reality?"

The old man grinned again. "As I said, my happy ending is not one I'm going to share. You, My Lord, should focus on yours."

"Mine is rather irrelevant considering I'm as trapped as you are. As you so gleefully pointed out."

"Yes, just with more power... or the illusion of it," The Apprentice shrugged.

"I have the power to throw your ass in The Styx," Neal threatened and the man chuckled.

"Oh, if you did, you would have already. No, I think not. Zeus has ordered you to interrogate me, but you can't even touch me let alone toss me in with those Lost Souls," The Apprentice taunted. "That must smart, doesn't it? And all the changes you want to make that are beyond your authority as a mere mortal allowed to play with the gods.

"Take your mother for instance," he continued. "You want to save her and all those poor souls your quasi-sister-in-law got damned in her selfish quest. But you can't. Even if you were allowed to try, do you think you would save them? What have you ever succeeded at, Baelfire? You couldn't save your father. You couldn't save Wendy. You didn't help Emma find her happy ending. You didn't keep your promise to be there for your son. And then you bound yourself to this farce of a purgatory for an impostor."

The Apprentice scoffed at Neal's stony expression. "So don't try to sell me some Candid bullshit, boy, that you made the best of choices in the best of all possible worlds with the hand fate dealt you or that you did anything more than put these cuffs on yourself. You fucked up, you know the world's a worse off place for the mistakes you and your idiot family have made, and there's a better chance of that pirate dying and being resurrected again than you righting all of these wrongs. You're no savior. And you're no god. You're just a dead man who indentured his soul for the wrong woman."

Neal clenched his fists and turned away, heading for the door.

"She'll come for you, Baelfire!" the old man called out after him. "And when she does, it will only bring more misery!"

* * *

It was a beautiful fall afternoon in Central Park. The leaves were changing colors and holiday decorations were starting to go up on the light poles.

Steve from Pendant had sent Emma and Henry to the park, specifically to the hansom cab hub where people took rides in white coaches. According to the editor, Neal had driven one and had left his sketch book in the cab one evening when the man and his wife were taking a romantic spin around Central Park. And that was how Neal got hired by his previous employer.

At the line of carriages between 6th and 5th Avenue, Emma asked around. Many of the drivers were new hires for the holiday season, but a few remembered him and eventually an older man pulled his carriage up to let some tourists off and nodded congenially.

"Oh, Neal! Of course I remember him. He had a way with the horses that most of the first-timers don't. He was always friendly. Even offered to return items people left in his carriage on his own time," the man told them. "I remember one time some little girl had left her stuffed... either a bunny or a kitty, I think, and the parents called looking for it. He took the subway all the way to Staton Island after his shift.

"He didn't work here more than six months, though," the man told them. "The thing is... there's a lot of problems here. The city tries to cover it up, but it's in the news now and then that some of the drivers mistreat the horses and there are problems with bike messengers and sometimes even cars hitting them. Neal talked to some reporter and the boss found out and, well, he got fired. He didn't want the fight for the 'whistle blower' protection whatever. And, anyway, some publisher had seen some of his drawings while on a ride, came to see me, and I gave him Neal's phone number, so it worked out, I suppose. Neal got a better paying job, which he deserved. Even if things still aren't much improved around here, to be honest.

"Geronimo," he nodded to the gelding that Henry was petting a short distance away, "collapsed last week and someone caught it on their phone and put it on YouTube. Some of the drivers, they overwork them, get one last fair even if the weather is too hot or too cold."

"Geronimo... Neal's horse?" Emma guessed and the man laughed at that.

"You knew him well, then. He said it had to be a sign when he was assigned that old horse, though he never said what about the name made him think that."

"We... were together over a decade ago, on the west coast," Emma explained, "and had a son, though we had split up and I never found him to tell since I'd given Henry up for adoption. Henry tracked me down a few years ago..."

"And you're looking for his father," nodded the man. "Well, I wish I could help. His phone number and address aren't current anymore. I tried looking him up myself after he stopped walking through the park on his way to work. It's been a few years now. I assumed he got transferred out of state. Maybe to Boston."

Emma couldn't bring herself to tell the man that Neal was dead so she just smiled. "Thanks, anyway. It's nice to hear he was doing something good... and that made him happy. He was a good guy... even if things didn't work out."

"That he was. Hey," the man told her and amended, "I have some of his drawings if you're interested?"

"Yeah, I'd like that."

"Should be in the club house," he said and Emma followed to the door. After a minute or two the cabbie came out of the office with some large sketches of Central Park and the carriages and a handful of sketch pad pages and that had been ripped out of their spiral binding.

"I recognized you right away," he said, handing over the ripped pages. "Emma, isn't it? He mentioned you a few times. The love of his life that got away."

They were all renditions of her, Emma realized. Her back in Portland but also scenes from Neal's imagination. Some of them featured self-portraits of Neal, the two of them together. There was even one she recognized as a version of the large charcoal drawing in his apartment, but not in silhouette.

"Neal was usually in a good mood. I mean, no one in New York is ever cheerful exactly," chuffed the old man, "but one day on his way to work he just ripped all these out, tossed them in the trash. I happened to be on my route, so I retrieved them. He didn't notice, but I thought next time he came by I'd see if he wanted them back. Impulsive things like that, you often regret them, you know? But that was the last time I saw Neal."

Emma took the sketches while fighting tears. "Thank you."

"Love's a bitch sometimes, you know," the old man told her sadly. "But maybe it's not too late?"

"Yeah," Emma nodded back, even though it was too late. Looking over at Henry petting the horse, she asked, "How much for a ride with Geronimo?"

* * *

Neal forced himself not to dwell on the old geezer's words as he returned to the Library. He focused on completing his tasks for the day and then headed out, taking his usual route through the park which was devoid of the horse carriages, paddle boats, and other entertainment.

Arthur wasn't on his bench, probably off ranting to some newcomers that he was the rightful King, and the subway was mostly deserted, few souls venturing underground - probably because Arthur had spread a rumor that Cerberus lived down here.

Neal didn't bother with any music for the trip, as music just made everything seem even more depressing. He'd come across a guy in a burned out cab once playing "Only You" and that had kind of been the end of music for him in The Underworld.

Back at his apartment, Neal pulled out leftover Chinese and listened to rain starting to fall - which would have everyone huddled inside in terror thanks to Hades. Neal liked the rain, the soothing staccato rhythm against the windows, rare as it was here.

With a sigh, he gave into temptation and pulled from his messenger bag the crystal ball. He'd taken it from the Dark Castle on his and Belle's quest and replicas of his belongings had come with him to The Underworld. It was how he'd been able to watch Emma and Henry, hard as it was. It was how he'd learned about Emma becoming the Dark One and her quest to save Hook.

And how he'd discovered that he'd been screwed again. Of course.

Touching his fingers to the base, Neal concentrated on Emma and it didn't take long for the mist to clear and reveal - his apartment.

His throat closed up watching her and Henry - he'd grown so much - pulling slices of pizza from a box on his kitchen table.

"I miss you," Neal sighed. "But don't come for me."

* * *

After hanging Neal's dreamcatcher in the window, Emma thought the way the sunset scattered through the webbing seemed almost magical.

But there was no magic that could bring Neal back to her. All she had were stories other people had told and regrets that she never took the time to hear them from Neal, to find out what he'd done with his life after leaving her.

In her anger, of course, she'd assumed he did selfish things, never thinking of her. By the time she realized that probably wasn't true he was gone, taken first by that bullet, then Pan's curse, then the Vault of the Dark One. She knew now that he'd lived in this crappy apartment because he used most of the money he made to pay back the people he'd stolen from, including that jewelry store, even though insurance must have covered it anyway.

While she was still stealing and living out of a car, he was teaching night school math classes to immigrants. While she was doing a job offered as an ultimatum to jail time and pretending it made her good and important he was helping runaway and foster kids at one of those after school programs. There was some vindication now in knowing her lapses in morality were the result of her sister fighting to get out, but it was hard to just let go of the guilt for the people who got hurt whenever she went into selfish bitch mode - or abandon the anger for how her own paths in life, the choices she could have made to be a good mother, hold a steady job, be someone she was proud of, were every time undermined by feelings and intentions that weren't really hers.

Which included that never had coffee date with Neal. And trying _anything_ to save him that day in the forest. Not to mention that time travel fuckery that was entirely her sister and had probably screwed up all kinds of things in the past thirty-odd years that no one would even remember had been changed for the worse.

Well, maybe Neal would, wherever he was, but that where was beyond reaching and all Emma could hope was that he was looking down on her somehow, that he knew she hadn't forsaken him and would have done anything she could to change her sister's selfish actions. That she was going to do her best to keep her promise and raise Henry up right, no matter how hard it would be to deprogram the kid of all the ass-backward and just plain nonsensical brand of "ethics" and "justice" that filled his book, that was either a reflection of a messed up world, a symptom of it, or had actually contributed over the years with those shady, selfish Authors- and yes, she included Walt Fucking Disney and his frozen head who turned a job into his own lucrative billion dollar empire and instead of trying to inject some of the few "progressive" bits of the real histories where women were stronger, where there was racial diversity, he went for the same dress and pearls white supremacy bullshit that seemed to, no matter how much it unnerved Emma to think it, define how her parents and their friends viewed their reality.

Had Disney made things worse?

Either way, Emma was going to make sure Henry didn't turn out like that. Or Isaac. He was going to write things they way people really were, not some idealized, misogynist, racist version where only certain people's stories mattered. Or maybe she'd get him to burn that damn book, to break that quill again, because the kid was right before Cruella messed with his head: no one should have that kind of power. Because it wasn't just writing history. There _had_ to be some kind of feedback loop with that magic for the book to have mattered at all in breaking the Dark Curse. And being at the mercy of magic like that, it made Emma seriously fucking uncomfortable. Her sister might be totally cool with it - and probably pissed that Emma got all the magic powers - but she wasn't, and she was going to do something about it!

She just had to figure out how to reconnect with Henry first.

It felt sort of like the first time all over again. Only this time she'd known Henry, he wasn't just a faceless crying baby. This time she had concrete regrets and pain for the things she'd missed _while standing right there_. She had her sister's memories the same way her sister had hers, but where that bitch was an oblivious tramp where Henry was concerned, Emma could look back and see her son's confusion and feelings of isolation and betrayal as his "mother" repeatedly chose her boyfriend over him, never bothered to talk to him about the possibility she was dying, never asked if he was okay with that douchebag pirate moving into her house. The list went on and on, including all that "Dark Swan" bullshit, and Emma had no idea how to make up for stuff that wasn't her doing or just... pick up where _she_ left off with Henry, because he'd grown up while she was just an unwilling passenger in her sister's story, a mostly useless conscience battered by the Dark One into being nearly ineffectual and nowhere near as influential on her sister's emotionally-driven decisions as her sister had been on Emma's all those years when they held opposite roles.

It was kind of demoralizing to know she was that useless as a savior that she couldn't even really help her sister. Maybe keep her from committing cold-blooded murder, but not covering it up. Not ripping out a girl's heart or brainwashing her son so that he looked at Neal's dreamcatcher like it was made by a giant venomous spider that was going to attack him in his sleep, and no amount of explaining how cherished it was, how much it meant to his own story, would probably change that, because her fucking sister had decided to use everything dear to her to fuck over her family, and no matter what their mother said, Emma _knew_ there was spite involved. There was malice aforethought in all of those actions for the years she was trapped, for the quasi-conscious part of Emma that had continued to fight against her selfish actions. Snow White could delude herself to feel better about her own selfish choices, to pretend like she didn't have an imperfectly _dangerous_ child, but Emma had shared a skin with her twin her entire life, and she knew there was no empathy, no compassion there - because that was all _her._

"... so I was thinking we could hang Dad's drawings at Grandma and Grandpa's until you get a place and - Mom, you okay?"

Emma shook off her wayward thoughts and nodded, grabbing a slice for her plate. "Yeah, fine. Still figuring out this whole 'free of my parasitic twin' plus 'having my own darkness' stuff. It's... weird looking back at my life and decisions I made and now knowing someone else was influencing them, usually not in a good way."

"Like giving me up," Henry grimaced and Emma sat down.

"Yeah, like that."

"Pan would have come after me, though, so it worked out," shrugged Henry.

"Maybe," Emma agreed, "but I'd rather have the real memories of raising you than the fake ones Regina gave me. I know nothing can change that, though. And I know she's your mother, in a lot of ways more than I can ever be. What you had with her was real, what we had was lies..."

Henry set his pizza down and shook his head. "That's not true. You're both my moms. And even if those memories weren't real, they were _happy_ , which I didn't have _for real_ with Regina. And I know that's why she did it, to make up for it, but it still counts as ours, Mom." He frowned, considering, "I just wish Dad could have been part of that too."

Emma sighed. "Me too, Henry. I wish... I wish I had been able to find a way to bring him with us. Maybe everything would have been different then. I didn't even take the time to think about it. My sister-"

"Was too busy flirting with Hook to let you?" Henry snorted.

"And I was too scared to try, to even admit that I'd gotten my hopes up, let myself consider giving it another go with your dad only to have that blow up again like the universe didn't want us to, so I didn't try to fight against that feeling," Emma explained regretfully. "A real savior, a real hero, would have fought for that, for her own kid's happy ending. For _hers_. Maybe not as blindly and selfishly as my sister did, but I still screwed up and now there's always going to be this... emptiness in our family," she concluded with a sad look at the empty chair across from her, where Neal had sat the night they reunited picking at left over Chinese while she tried to convince Henry to go back to the hotel with her and Gold.

"It wasn't your fault," Henry insisted and scowled. "It was Pan and Zelena and your sister _who wanted you to be selfish._ And Grandma and Gramps for not helping Dad get back to us. I don't get how they could do that. And Dad _still_ helped them, even when he had to know that meant he'd die sooner once he got split from his dad. That's what real heroes do. He just got stuck with a crappy destiny."

"Yeah," Emma agreed while silently wondering, and how had they repaid that sacrifice? Zelena was still alive, raising a kid after getting another father murdered, they all avoided Rumplestiltskin like the Plague, essentially having excommunicated him from the family before Neal's body was even cold and weren't much kinder to Belle either, having let that relationship turn into a gruesome highway accident of backstabbing, hypocrisy, selfishness, and stupidity - with a kid stuck in the middle.

Emma picked up her soda cup. "To crappy destinies," she mock toasted. "Seems to run in the family."

They ate in silence aside from the rain that had started to fall. Henry eventually excused himself to use the bathroom and Emma took the dishes to the sink.

Feeling rather miserable, Emma touched the keychain at her throat, wondering when the empty feeling, the guilt and regret would go away -then realizing given the gnawing sensation in the pit of her stomach she still had for giving up her kid, it probably never completely would.

Emma let out a sigh and dried her hands. At least she didn't have an ugly-ass engagement ring that originally belonged to an asshole who got it as a result of committing mass murder and was then worn by another asshole murderer for three hundred years.

It really wasn't fair, she lamented, fighting tears. She was the one who suffered through a shitty childhood, who had first love taken away from her and had to give up her kid because of a stupid destiny! Neal was the one who tried and tried and tried to help others while always getting a raw deal for his selflessness. Why did they get fucked over while her selfish bitch sister and her rapist lover got the epic true love romance and adventures and a happily ever after that they didn't even have the emotional capacity to appreciate? Had she run over a cart of nuns in a past life or something? Was being a savior really a curse and she was doomed unless she used those stupid scissors? Could those things have separated her and her sister sooner _and_ un-saviored her? Had her savior-ness doomed Neal?

"I'm sorry," she choked out. "I'm sorry loving me ruined your life."

There was a knock on the front door.

* * *

AN: Neal using the crystal ball to watch Emma and Henry: sweet or Hook-like creepy? The show introducing the Shears of Destiny as a big horrible deception between Hook and Emma being turned into more Evil Rumple plotting: surprise or saw it coming a nautical mile away?

Next up: Another quest begins.


	10. Change of Plans

**Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.**

 **Warning: References to Golden Queen, so keep those barf bags ready!**

* * *

CHAPTER TEN

CHANGE OF PLANS

Emma opened the door find her sister standing in the doorway in _her_ red jacket and jeans and afforded the ponytailed blonde with a glare.

"Seriously?" Emma snapped. "I can't even take a trip without you showing up to ruin it?"

"Nice to see you too, Sis," her mirror image in leather and jeans retorted. "Rocking the jailbird stripes and tights again, huh? Between your throwback grunge look and impersonating a dead woman's fashion sense, you have some messed up nostalgia."

"Says the woman wearing my 'messed up' wardrobe with a fancy-ass blouse that cost two paychecks," Emma scoffed. "What happened to pushing back and _changing who you are_? You're your own woman now, _Sis_. No annoying Conscience Emma to nag you to not be a total bitch all the time or interfering with your haute catoure sensibilities with messed up thrift store flannel and flowers nostalgia."

"What can I say? Killian likes the leather jackets with just a _touch_ of my high fashion sense feminine side. Something you don't have - fashion sense or femininity," her sister shrugged and Emma glowered.

"I don't want what your nasty-ass _fiancé_ \- who wore the same clothes for three hundred years and drunk raped women - considers fashion or a 'feminine side'. I'd rather have K-Mart clothes and self-respect than anything to do with _a cheap rum stinking pussy grabber_."

"Oi, again with the personal insults!" Hook suddenly interjected from the stairs, but then afforded Emma a flirty look as he reached the hallway and quipped, "But don't pretend you didn't want me to grab your pu-"

Emma _grabbed_ a letter opener from the shelf by the pocket watches and shoved the pirate against the hallway opposite the door, the blade against his throat. "Remember the first time we were in this position? If you insist on a next time, it'll be with my father's sword, about three feet lower, and you'll get more than a nick."

Hook scowled and rubbed his throat as Emma pulled back at the sound of footsteps... that belonged to her parents, Regina, and even Belle who crowded into the hallway, all of them coughing and gagging.

"Who keeps a stink bomb in their purse!?" Regina was complaining.

"It was meant for your house before you dragged me on this stupid trip!" snapped Zelena, last to appear on the landing while tugging at the anti-magic cuff she'd been shackled with again. "Why couldn't I have stayed home?"

"Because you deserve to be miserable and the people of Storybrooke don't," Belle told the former Wicked Witch while spraying cherry Binaca around the hallway.

"Oh, please, like you care about them," scoffed Zelena, making for the apartment's open doorway.

"Oh, HELL NO!" Emma held out her hands. "You are not coming in this apartment. _Neither are either of you!_ " she directed at Hook and her sister. "I don't care if Storybrooke fell into a giant sinkhole!"

"But I have to use the toilet!" Zelena complained. "I'm going to get a UTI!"

"Burning when you urinate is the least you deserve," Emma told her. "Maybe it will even turn into a kidney infection, in which case, can you _really_ count on your sister to donate?"

"You're horrible. I like your sister better," harumphed Zelena.

"The feeling is mutual!"

"Mom?" Henry called from the apartment and Hook pushed his way past in the distraction after which Emma gave up and let the hoard in. "What's going on? Why are they here?"

"I don't know. And I don't really care," Emma said and glared as Hook flopped back on Neal's bed. "Get up!"

Rolling his eyes, Hook argued, "Worried I'm going to add my cooties to Robin's forest hobo lice and Zelena's Monkey Herpes?"

"I do not have Monkey Herpes!" Zelena growled, exiting the bathroom. "But you do have syphilis and I'm sure you had more crabs than all the Flying Monkeys combined before Dr. Whale had you deloused like a prison inmate before letting you in one of his beds. Nurse Ratched has pictures, you know. I've never seen an arse that white!"

Hook glared.

Zelena smirked.

Simultaneous to this conversation, Regina was scolding Henry, "I left a dozen messages. You could have answered your phone."

Henry pulled his phone out of his jacket on the couch and winced, "Oops. I still have it set on 'school'."

"Shocking Henry even has that setting since you never made him go to school," Emma directed at her sister.

"Yeah, that's all on me. Not his _teacher_ who also ditches to basically walk around town with her bow and arrow without notice," Emma's sister drawled. "Remember when Mom realized that between everyone else's magical powers and her postpartum fat ass she was kind of useless at that, but instead of taking care of our woefully neglected brother she decided that she suddenly loved teaching, only without being cursed she was a terrible teacher and the kids wanted jackshit to do with her lousy lectures so she had to get tutored on how to be the fairy tale version of a teacher in one of those inner city youth inspiration movies by _Princess Jasmine_? Which is funny because she was teaching a bunch of spoiled, snotty, royal shits that she _should_ have been able to connect with from personal experience."

"Hey," Snow pointed at her daughter, "you don't get to judge me. This 'fat ass' brought you into the world and I wouldn't have had to patrol the town if you hadn't screwed up the past and brought back the crazy witch who made the time spell and whose too-powerful unstable portals keep bringing evil people here. And maybe I wouldn't have needed help from Jasmine if my daughter had come over, but you even had your father come to your place so you could mooch pancakes off of him before spending tax payer money making out with boyfriend so David had to pull double duty and be exhausted all the time!"

"You let me get away with that!" the bitchy blonde shot back. "And it was only so I wouldn't have to eat Killian's nasty grapefruit and mackerel shit!"

"What!?" Hook sputtered. "You said you liked my pirate breakfasts!"

"Well, I _lied_ ," she told him. "I'm _evil_. I do that. And you lie to me at least once a day and I pretend not to notice cause I honestly don't give two shits as long as you drink some rum to get rid of your fish breath stank. Get over it."

To her mother she said, "And don't try to pull the wounded mother card! It was only Dad who cared that I wasn't hanging around for family fun time. You liked me copy-catting your romance, like it was some super legitimization that you and Dad are the epitome of true lovedom and all humanoid kind should emulate your perfect vanilla missionary sex 'I will always find you' wholesomeness."

"Excuse me!?" Snow scoffed. "Not that it's any of your business, but we do not have vanilla-"

"You kind of do," Belle interrupted. "I used Rumple's crystal ball once to look in on your apartment to see if I'd left my scarf after baby-sitting and you two were going at it and it was like watching British porn. I mean, I wasn't expecting a sex swing like those two perverts have," she gestured at Anna and Hook, which earned disgusted looks all around, "but, I don't know, maybe a little ass play. I know if motherhood had given me an ass like that, I wouldn't be wearing mom jeans."

"These are _not_ mom jeans!" Snow hissed. "And at least I'm having sex in a healthy, committed relationship instead of whatever that hot codependent mess is you and Gold are trapped in that involves him sleeping with the phantasmic pure evil version of the woman who held you prisoner for years and stole your heart and wiped your memory that time!"

"Yes, we're all tired of your self-righteous, hypocritical trainwreck of a marriage. And you wonder why we never want to bring you along on these trips!" scoffed Zelena.

"Also," she directed at Regina with a scowl, "still not over you sleeping with my man!"

"He is not your man, you Electra-Complex-Having cunt!" Belle spat.

"I guess the BFF-ship is dead," snorted Emma, rolling her eyes. She never understood those two, or at least she never understood Belle with her penchant for running to the people who helped destroy her life with extreme malice to ally against her husband, the man those people basically fucked up into the person she was pissed off at all the time. Frankly, Emma had to wonder if Belle got brain-damaged when those ogres knocked her out back in Fairy Tale Land and she suffered from some sort of actual dissociative disorder where she had a sweet personality who loved Gold and a stone-cold manipulative bitch personality who wanted to bury that motherfucker and piss on his grave.

"Hang on! Rumple was my tutor for like a month! He tutored Gina for over a decade! That's way more incesty!" Zelena huffed.

"Really is, luv," nodded Hook, "and I tried to shag my stepson's baby mama. Who'd have thought you would be an even nastier sex pervert than little old me?"

" _Shut up_ ," Regina snapped at him, "or I'll take that hook and shove it-"

"Oh, leave my man alone!" Emma's less stable half defended. "You're never going to live down your creepy surrogate daddy sex dreams and we all know you _love_ having your evil twinsy's memories of doing the nasty with the Dark One. Even my mother thinks that's sick, and she totally supported Killian shagging her grandson's baby mama a week after the kid's dad kicked it."

That drew a scowl from Emma at both her sister and her mother who glared at the currently mouthy one and warned, "You are not helping by bringing up-"

"What? The truth?" she scoffed. "Can't handle it coming from your even-more-damaged-than-previously-thought kid? That's right, because I'm the 'Evil Twin' who can't ever be saved from my imperfections by true love and homemaking and bullshit justifications for why lying is another way of saying 'I love you'. Now you harp on everything I do like ten times as much as when I was just influencing Emma to do stuff that went against your 'tell no lies' and 'always have hope' crap or her goody-goody saviorness was making me bite my tongue because she wants soooo badly to make you proud and that means being little miss perfect cause if there's anything Snow White can't stand it's the horrible possibility that anyone blood related to her might be doomed to be anything less than a perfect do-gooder!

"Zelena's right! You're a hypocritical, self-centered bi-"

"Watch it!" Snow snapped loudly and at her wit's end which brought out her rarely-used violent-tempered bitch side that had been mostly suppressed since that first return trip to The Enchanted Forest.

"I have _had it_!" the princess-turned-quasi-queen-turned-school-teacher growled, getting in her daughter's face. "You are _not_ too old for me to ground you! _I am your mother_. I ruined your life by accident but I _will_ ruin it _on purpose_ if you keep up this whiny little bitch act you've been pulling since Boston. You started this mess. And if finishing it means _me_ dragging _your_ ungrateful butt to Hell this time, _Anna Evalyn Nolan_ , then I will do it, are we clear?"

 _Anna_ growled, crossing her arms to mimmick Emma who inquired, " _Anna Evalyn Nolan_?"

"Seems Mom and Dad decided they have the right to name me even though they ruined my life from nearly conception and had no idea I existed until a few days ago," Anna hissed, throwing sour looks at both of their parents. "They had Gold make some legal contract birth certificate shit. But don't worry, I'm not gonna change it to 'Swan' any more than I'm keeping 'Nolan' which is just as phony. I'm taking Killian's, so you don't have to share the memory of how that makes you stronger or whatever one of Mom's bs justifications you use to put a positive spin on your crap childhood."

"It was between 'Emma' and 'Anna' when we were naming you," David explained while rubbing at a headache. "I suggested Anna after Elsa's sister."

"Who for some reason," snorted Belle, "chose the most bloody and violent method to deal with some local thugs she knew nothing about, so it seems like a perfect fit to me. She _also_ turned out to be a rather annoying thug-slaying little twit of a princess," she concluded with a glare at Anna who flipped her off.

"I thought you felt bad for nearly getting her killed?" asked Emma and Belle shrugged.

"I rethought that after getting the list for her wedding registry via wishing star delivery which _strongly suggested_ I get her a pink unicorn. Why would I get her _any_ unicorn? Is she going to keep it in her peasant-labor heated castle so it doesn't turn into a unicorn-cicle in the reindeer stable? I let the whole guilt thing cloud my judgment. Bitch is crazy."

"Takes one to know one," snorted Zelena.

"Um... okay," said Emma, kind of at a loss. "Because Henry didn't answer his phone you guys came all the way to tell me that my sister has a name while calling each other names like a bunch of cranky five-year-olds who haven't had nap time?"

"Of course not, that would stupid," Regina sighed. "No one cares what your worse half calls herself. And I don't know what bugs crawled up their butts," she directed at Snow, Belle, Anna, and Zelena. "Unfortunately, it was _after you left_ that Anna Skankrenina had either a pang of conscience or some indigestion-"

" _Really_?" Anna interrupted.

"That's actually quite clever, Gina!" Zelena declared, then pouted. "Why didn't I think of it?"

"Stop calling the woman I love a skank!" Hook growled.

"I've held my tongue in this stupid name calling war for _eight hours_ aboard your smelly ship," Regina snapped. "She had it coming. And if you bring up my double's indiscretion one more time, so help me-"

" _What_ is going on?" Emma demanded.

David explained, "Anna decided to have a séance."

"Mom and Dad wouldn't shut up about how my happiness was making you miserable," groaned Anna, "and how I owed you and shit for giving me optimism or love-by-proxy or something. I figured it'd get them to shut up and leave me alone if I did something 'nice', whether it worked or not."

"It worked all right," grumbled Hook, rubbing his throat. "Neal got the Green Bitch to strangle me! I'm not the one who killed him!"

"Well he couldn't exactly strangle me unless he wanted to kill off any chance at communicating with his stupid loved ones!" Zelena rolled her eyes.

"Wait," Henry finally rejoined the conversation/bickering, "you mean you guys _talked to my dad_!?"

"Sort of," sighed Snow. "Neal possessed Zelena."

"Who strangled me for putting moves on the wrong woman!" huffed Hook. "You and Baelfire have issues!"

"Seems he lied about moving on and was still in The Underworld," Regina explained, "thanks to Hades _and my sister_."

Zelena rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't pin it on me, Sis! I didn't lock him in Bizarro Granny's motel room! I wasn't even part of that plan to keep all your family members accept the ones Hades wanted you to mess with locked up. And it's certainly not my fault _Neal_ found out his plan and warned Emma so he didn't get to make nice with his mommy and move on or that he lied to the Wonder Twins here before apparently making a deal with Zeus to restore Captain Hep C to life. If he was stupid enough to accept eternal misery to offer up his step daddy to his baby mama as her one true love, then the joke is on him."

"You could have told us all after Hades was killed," Regina pointed out while Emma stared, slack-jawed.

"Like I could have told you Hades was lying about that crystal completely destroying good souls," Zelena shrugged. "But I was doing you both a kindness. So _you_ wouldn't get your hopes up and move on and _the rest of us_ wouldn't have to endure Emma guilt-tripping over her baby daddy and then the whole love triangle thing which according to that green fairy was _really_ annoying the first time. Not that it worked out on the Robin front. We still had endure his ugly mug again while you got your closure," she scoffed.

"Anyway, throw in the whole 'restoring a life takes a life' thing what with Anna getting Captain STD back and the universe taking Robin 1.0 to pay the debt, I didn't really like my odds, quite honestly, if Emma decided Henry deserved his daddy back while keeping her leather dildo."

"Damn right you shouldn't like your odds!" Emma seethed and now attacked Zelena, throwing her into the lockers, hands around her throat, shocking everyone. "You shouldn't be allowed to live, let alone happily with the child you conceived by raping a man _in this apartment, the apartment of the man you murdered_!"

"Emma-" Regina tried to reason, but magic shoved her back as the blonde violently tried to strangle Zelena, fingers digging into the redhead's throat with obvious fatal intentions.

"Emma, let her go!" Snow pleaded, but Emma wasn't listening.

"You're a fucking psychopath," she continued as Zelena gasped and struggled for air. "And I'm fucking tired of this family giving a million chances to spoiled, childish, deceitful little shits like you who think redemption is having family dinners while not giving a shit about all the people whose lives you've ruined, who can't have family dinners because you wanted to be a fucking princess or a queen or take a spin on the Dark One's dick.

"Maybe I should cast a spell on you _and_ Hook," she continued as Zelena's lips started turning blue, "and have you rape each other. I could throw Regina in too, get a little justice for Graham. _Or_." She moved one hand from Zelena's throat into her chest. "I could just rip out your heart and crush it now."

" _Mom_!" Henry's shout and his hand on her shoulder did snap her out of it and she quickly let Zelena go and stumbled back, sans heart. He then glared at the rest of them. "What's wrong with all of you!? Why do you have to ruin everything!?"

While Henry ran out the window to the fire escape, Emma tried to calm down, torn between going after her son and facing the rest of her family.

Wheezing, Zelena smirked, "Looks like the little savior got her dark side back."

"Emma?" Snow gasped.

"She's right," sighed Regina. "Also, language!"

"Yeah, sorry." Emma winced and sagged against the bookshelf and conceded, "Lily was dying. I had to do it. I wanted to do it. I'm a big enough freak as a savior without being some uber savior at her expense. It was wrong."

"Oh, sweetheart," Snow gasped and hurried over to hug her. "You could have told us."

"You would have tried to stop me," Emma stated and pulled out of her mother's unwelcome embrace. "You always need my help. My _extra_ special help. If you didn't, you would have urged me to take my darkness back when Lily got to town. _And_ when Maleficent ask for your help. And you would have encouraged me to cut out my savior-ness, because you would have known I just wanted to be normal.

"But you _always_ put yourself before your kids," she accused her mother coldly. "You keep saying you're putting me first, but you're not. You said refusing to help Neal find me and Henry was putting me and my happiness first, but it wasn't. And he died. And you didn't even care. Not really. You made some big bullshit show of naming my brother after him and then practically pushed me into Hook's arms with bridal and baby magazines. It's like you were trying to subliminally get me hitched and knocked up so I guess we could bond over wedding dresses and morning sickness since you stopped trying to just be my friend the moment you found out I was your daughter!"

Snow's expression fell. "Emma, I _was_ your friend. I do _want_ to be your friend-"

"Why? Because _Anna_ is right that she's a disappointment now?" Emma shook her head. "Mary Margaret was my friend, but you made it clear you don't want to be her anymore. You want to be Snow White who supported Regina having an affair, because screw morality if a fairy said you're soulmates right? You want to be Snow White who decided a man who helped the woman who killed your mother murder hundreds of people and left us for dead and who handed your grandson's father over to a child abuser has to be the one true love soulmate for your perfect little savior princess because a book rewritten by a time getting screwed up said so, and if your daughter's one true love wasn't destined to be a syphilitic manwhore who tagged along on your meet-cute then that means you sent her real true love off to die so he wouldn't get in the way of your do-over!"

"Emma..." Snow gasped.

"I don't want or need your help as my mother or my so-called friend!" Emma snapped, "because you suck at both! I mean, was it remotely normal that I didn't give a shit about Henry when I or Anna or _whatever_ thought the savior thing would kill me?" she demanded. "That 'my' biggest concern was whether or not my new boyfriend would forgive me so I sat there pouting at him while my kid had to get support from a freak'n stranger!? That's _not_ good parenting! Good parenting is putting your kids first, which means making sure they put _their_ kids first, not the person they're sharing a bed with who recently tried to murder your entire family!

"But, hey, that relationship was right up your ally, right?" continued Emma. "Cause you're a needy mess who can't bare to function on your own _just like her_ who defied all laws of nature to bring back the husband you killed. And why did you do it? To get me to clean up your fucking mess so you could have your happy ending do-over, a mess that maybe wouldn't have even happened if you'd helped Neal instead of telling him to quit messing up your do-over and thrown Zelena in a pit with some rabid Flying Monkeys!"

"I resent that!" the witch huffed.

While Snow and David both looked uncomfortable under Emma's tirade, which wasn't finished.

"You don't get to decide to only help when you feel bad about something you screwed up in the first place!" Emma continued. "And you don't get to tell my sister that she doesn't have to feel bad about shit that is entirely her fault like _everything_ that happened as a result of her blackmailing Gold into dragging everyone to Hell to save her fuckboy pirate! And that _includes_ your stupid tag-team sleeping curse caused by that stupid river water you got at least one good person eternally damned with and do you _even_ care!? No! Because it doesn't directly effect you! Just like that guy _Dad murdered_ so you could true love finger bang and I assume grow some bullshit tree out of his still-warm corpse!

"You're all a bunch of selfish pricks and it's extremely tempting to cut out my savior shit just so the lot of you can fucking fend for yourselves for once!" Emma snapped in conclusion before stomping out to the fire escape.

"Wow, didn't think she had it in her," sniggered Anna, impressed, "and I might add, if you need dead relatives and mass murdered villages to understand hope, then you're more screwed up than Zelena!"

Snow burst into tears.

"You're a horrible person," Regina told the blonde while taking a slice of pizza out of the box on the table, "and _I've_ had people mass murdered."

"And want to shag-"

Regina conjured a fireball to silence the pirate.

"No one said I had to deliver the news pleasantly," shrugged Anna, taking the slice of pizza out of her hand. "I did my part. You idiots wanted to tag along and fucked it up. That's on you. Now I get my happy ending and no one gets to tell me to feel guilty about it!"

* * *

Emma ducked under the dreamcatcher and joined Henry who'd obviously been crying and wiped at his wet cheeks with his scarf.

"Hey, Kid, you okay?"

"Not really."

"Yeah, me neither," she sighed. "Our family is kind of fu... er... screwed up."

"Yeah," Henry snorted, "seems like everyone's slept with everyone or had some evil double sleep with someone so they kind of slept with them too and it's all nastier than _Game of Thrones_."

"Yeah, I think this family has a lot of daddy issues," Emma mused, not really intending to segway in that particular manner.

Henry asked, "Did Dad really lie that he was in a good place or did _Aunt Anna_ make that up so he wouldn't mess with her plan?"

Emma grimaced and shrugged. "I guess he did."

"Why? Why would he _do_ that? Didn't he care that I missed him? He was _my_ unfinished business!" Henry cried angrily.

"I'm sure he did, Henry. But he thought... he probably thought he was protecting you from even more pain," Emma told him. "Like I told myself I was protecting you when I said your dad was dead, only _he_ was actually being selfless, because look what ended up happening in The Underworld?"

Henry pondered this before considering, "And he thought you were in love with Hook but you'd try to save him for me and even if it didn't work, if Hook stayed dead too you'd resent me for making you choose between my happiness and yours."

Emma gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Maybe he did. But your happiness is mine, okay? Being a parent is putting your kid's happiness first. That true love trumps all this romance soulmate nonsense, no matter what that book or anyone else from those fairy tale lands say, okay?

"But... yeah... the way my sister was slutting it up for Hook," she sighed, "and lying to you to try saving that messed up romance, I wouldn't be surprised if your dad did think that."

"It's not fair. Zeus tricked him!" Henry growled. "He had to! How would a god not know you had a sister?"

That actually was a good point, Emma realized, considering Belle and Gold's kid was a reincarnation or something of Morpheus who knew all kinds of shit before he was even born... which still confused Emma, though her sister hadn't given two fucks about any of that so she probably didn't have most of the pertinent details. Still, though...

"I don't know, Kid," she told him, "but I'm going to find out."

Emma ducked back into the apartment and into a rather depressingly weird scene. Anna and Hook were now making out on Neal's bed, her mother was sniffling over on the couch being comforted by her father. Zelena was mixing drinks while Regina was helping herself to the pizza. Belle had her nose buried in a book she must have had in her oversized handbag, seated as far away from the others as she could get.

It was Regina who awkwardly approached her. "Look, this is screwed up. I'm not going to fight you on your mother's terrible judgment and nonexistent parenting skills or that my sister is a lying bitch and your sister is a selfish slut and I obviously have issues best worked out in therapy, but now isn't the time to throw tantrums and punch people in the face. I know it's not fair, Emma. But I got closure with Robin. You deserve to have that with Neal. So focus on that. And then if you still want to break some noses... well, I'll at least help ruin the pirate's pretty face."

Emma managed a weak smile at that. "Maybe you're right. I guess I've been accumulating a lot of anger since _Anna_ took over. I'd consider attending Archie's anger management classes, but Leroy would probably punch _me_ in the face for Anna interrupting his sessions... and it's kind of hard to trust a shrink who couldn't tell I had magical multiple personality disorder."

"Well, he did get his degree from a curse," Belle spoke up. "I'd rather take advice from a book by Freud than going to Archie, nice as he is."

"Or your somehow omniscient two week old zygote with magical dream powers?" Anna called out from the other room. "People with shitty-ass judgment who take charity from multiple people who tried to murder them multiple times to spite their husband in order to spite their husband for lying don't get to cast stones. I mean, shit, are you actually the most evil person in this room or just stupid?"

"Not taking opinions from the empathy-challenged peanut gallery that includes an idiot who didn't even know he was the freak'n Dark One," Belle shot back, not looking at the couple on the bed. "And you said you were done being helpful, so _shut up_!"

"So?" Emma asked Belle. "Do you think there's a chance Neal can get out of whatever deal he made? Would Zeus have known he was making a deal for Anna, not for me? Could that be a loophole?"

"It is unlikely Zeus was _unaware_ that you were merged with your sister who was in primary control of your magic and savior duties," Belle answered. "It's a sort of magic that gods are familiar with. In order to maintain human form, for instance, for a period longer than a few hours, gods must find and merge with a human who will, at times, be afforded short periods of dominance to maintain the stability of the connection. Of course, the human eventually becomes aware that something is amiss due to blackouts in memory and that's generally when the merged state has to be terminated or each begins to affect the mental and emotional stability of the other. It's why gods generally don't interact with mortals outside of their own realms."

"Um... right, that makes sense," Emma humored the bookworm. "So, there's a chance I can use what was essentially not disclosing important information to Neal to get him out of whatever deal he's made, right? I mean, that seems like the kind of contract loophole Gold would use."

"Well... I suppose... essentially..." Belle shrugged and told her, "But you have to keep in mind that the gods are almost all selfish, sexist, pan-sexual freaks whose most difficult choices range from which unsuspecting mortal to rape and impermanent to if they have time between plotting to kill each other and attend an orgy to shag both their sister and a horse. I mean, it's not like Zeus pardoning Hook was some sign of his redemption or conflicted with the gods' ethical code in any way. If they even have one it amounts to a reality show of fake alliances and backstopping to get to the top of Mt. Olympus."

"Sounds about right," agreed Zelena. "I should have known better than to think one midnight bike ride could really result in true love."

"Plus, you and Hades were a couple of psychopaths," snorted Emma with a glance at her sister and the man who - ugh - might become her brother-in-law.

"Magical law doesn't prevent psychopaths from having true love," Zelena stated, amending with a smirk, "Look at Belle and Rumple?"

Belle glared hard. Zelena flipped her off.

Emma chose not to ask what had soured the 'friendship' between the psycho murderer and emotionally abusive housewife. Maybe they deserved each other after all. Though it made her feel extra angry on Neal's behalf for getting in the middle of their crazy trainwreck.

"But there's still a chance," Emma insisted.

"Maybe," Belle conceded.

"So I just need to go to Olympus and demand that toga-draped bastard void his end of the deal for being a dishonest prick and then Neal gets to go wherever heroes are supposed to go."

"You can't get to Mt. Olympus from here, though," Snow told her, still sniffling. "Only gods can do that. You have to go either to The Underworld or Atlantis-"

"And since you're not a mermaid..." Regina concluded.

"Great. Another trip to Underbrooke. Whatever," shrugged Emma. "How do I do this? Bleed Gold in the town wishing well?"

"A river would be more convent," the Dark One announced himself in the doorway. "And spare us a return trip with _two_ of you."

"Oh, good, you finally showed up, Crocodile," Hook snarked, Anna's bra dangling from his hook. "Can we get on with the damn quest already then? I don't want to miss _Black Sails_. "

* * *

They ended up under the George Washington Bridge after a very weird subway experience. Emma had to resist using magic to make Zelena 'accidentally' fall on the third rail in front of a speeding train. She was pretty sure Regina would have forgiven her eventually. Pushing Anna and Hook as they made out was tempting too, but she wasn't so sure her parents would forgive that even after Anna's insults... although, then again, since they forgave Regina for killing their parents and were still helping _her_...

"Look, I know you're still pissed at me," Anna said, catching up with Emma after they had to scare off some junkies. "And I know you're jealous-"

"Jealous?" Emma cut her off with a laugh. " _Pissed_ , yes. Jealous? _Not remotely_. Yeah, I'm pissed off that you had the courage to risk being hurt for love after I fucked up that chance. But the guy you did that for? The relationship you have? I'd rather be alone for the rest of my life than have the abusive shitfest of a marriage that you're going to have."

Anna glowered. "It's not abusive. Killian has never hit me... well... after we became involved and I wasn't just someone in the way of him getting to Gold and when he hasn't been cursed to be evil. He changed. For love. For me."

Emma scoffed. "No he didn't. He may not hit you, but he manipulates you. He threatened suicide if you left, Anna! And he makes sure you believe you're too broken and damaged to ever be wanted by anyone else. _Maybe you are_ , but it's shit to do that to someone, and you don't do it to someone you love! He tries to justify his actions, including lying to you and going against your wishes, to make it seem like your feelings are invalidated by his love meaning he knows better for you than you do, and he uses your weaknesses against you. Makes sure you believe you need his approval for everything. _He treats you like property_.

"And don't get me started how he treats Henry!" Emma snapped. "He thought Henry was your kid and his delusional version of 'not destroying another family' completely left out that he played a pretty big role in destroying Henry's family by handing his father over to a child abuser and the moment Neal died, trying to get in my pants! Not destroying another family would have been not trying to murder us all and leaving us the hell alone, not trying to selfishly endear himself to everyone to get the big happy fucking family he did absolutely nothing to deserve! He's a selfish prick with narcissistic personality disorder and you're more damaged and fucked up at accepting what real love is than I am. You should be in therapy with Regina!"

Shaking her head, Emma told her scowling sister, "I pity you, Anna. You're settling for something codependent, something toxic and enabling that's never going to make you a better person."

Anna glared at her. "Yeah, well, you're going to end up alone and know it's your fault that you didn't use your true love powers to save your soulmate."

"You're right. But at least I'll have my self-respect," Emma argued, "and I'll have my memories of what it felt like to really love someone and be loved by someone. My happy ending might not be in this life, but that'll just make me strive harder to be the best person I can so I'll get to spend everything that comes after with my best friend who treated love like a gift you're given by the person you want to be with, who was my best friend instead of a pretty face to cling to who thinks you're the prize he gets to collect for beating the competition by out-living him and managing to go a year without getting a new STD."

Before Anna could consider a response to that, Gold slashed his palm with the dagger and let his blood drip into the water, causing it to glow and a fog to start forming.

Noticing the rest of her family gathering their things, Emma told them bluntly, "Hell no, you're not coming this time."

"But Emma-" David began.

" _No_. I thought I made it clear that the family field trip is what screwed things up last time," Emma cut her father off.

Snow stepped forward and tearfully admitted, "You're right, Emma. Our plans haven't exactly gone... as planned. And you're also right that I failed you as a friend and as a mother." She sniffed and laid a hand on Emma's shoulder. "I can't go back and undo the spell I had cast on you and your sister. I can't go back and have your father not put you in that wardrobe. And I can't go back and help Neal find you and Henry without losing his life. But I can help you see him again, even if it's only to help him move on," she pleaded.

"You want to feel better about screwing up," sighed Emma. "I get that. And I'm sorry... I'm sorry things between us aren't better, Mom, and that I don't know how to fix that. I think we just want different things. But coming with me won't fix any of that. It didn't last time. And the last thing I need is King Arthur of Douchedom deciding to rekindle some old grudge.

"Giving that creep control of The Underworld has to be one the worst ideas anyone's had in the history of ideas," she directed at Hook who rolled his eyes.

Snow nodded sadly. "I really am sorry, sweetheart. For everything. I really do just want to help you find happiness."

"I know. It's just not the same as your happiness and I have to find it on my own," Emma told her.

Henry tried, "Mom, I wanna come too. I can help."

"I know, but you can't. You need to stay here and far away from Cruella," Emma countered. "I know you want to be part of every adventure, Henry, and I know you want to see your dad _\- I wish you could_ \- but adventures don't make someone a hero, and a lot of the legends in that book are phonies anyway. Staying safe is what your dad would want. _Promise me_ you won't try anything."

Grudgingly, Henry agreed, "Okay, I promise."

Emma hugged him tightly, reminded again how much he hugged like Neal.

"Tell Dad I love him," Henry demanded.

"Of course I will," Emma promised and kissed him on the forehead.

The bridge was now completely swallowed up from view by the fog and there was a strengthening tinge in the air that Emma recognized as magic, and further recognized as the unsettlingly morbid kind from the last time the ferryman had been summoned.

"You realize," Gold told her as she joined him once more, "that there's no guarantee Zeus will agree to break the deal without making another."

"I know."

Gold sighed. "Bae would have said I was a good father until I took on this curse, but I was always too frightened. Belle is at least right about that. Everything terrified me, most of all being powerless to protect him from the dangerous world that twice nearly ended his life. I was so afraid of losing him that that fear became a self-fulfilling prophesy, one I have found myself repeating."

Grimacing, Emma admitted, "And I was so afraid of letting myself fall in love with him again, of admitting how I felt and losing that dream again, that I didn't try to save him with my savior powers - or true love and I couldn't fight my sister's control to fix anything after I lost control of those powers. I won't let that fear control me. Not this time."

"It will be harder with darkness tempting your heart, even if it isn't the thrall of the Dark One or even what you experienced with your sister," Gold cautioned and nodded as the familiar old boat's bow cut through the fog. "Just try to do right by my boy. He deserves that much after everything."

"You have my word. You're still family, even if you're a total scumbag most of the time."

With that, Emma stepped into the boat and took a seat on one of the warn benches. The fog closed in and it was just her and the silent cloaked ferryman guiding the boat through the dizzying, disorienting mist.

* * *

AN: I don't even know where or how to explain Regina and Gold suddenly having "chemistry" since that would have had to start WAY before Emma fucked up the timeline in canon. How is that a thing with zero previous indication!? Ugh! At least in _This Side of Paradise_ it could be those stupid flowers messing with both memories and hormones. Still, though, GROSS! And as you can probably tell, I pretty much loathe the character Belle has become. At this point, Emma, Regina, Henry, and Neal are really the only sympathetic characters in this story and the rest as are more in line with their canon characters: complete assholes incapable of self-reflection and accountability. Emma's family has basically been reduced to the cast of _It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia_. Other than Anna, I'm not sure if any of them will manage any character growth by the end of this story, though I would like to try to reconcile Snowing and their daughters and have Belle get a clue that ever since marrying Rumple she's turned into a selfish, backstabbing cunt. Also, a footnote: Emma's rant to Anna about her abusive relationship is partly from a screencap of tweets #HeMayNotHitYou that made the round in the ACS tag. /TheRealMissAbbs/status/731543237954011136

Next up: Hitchhiking in The Underworld, where the usual tropes are flipped!


	11. Hell On The Hudson

**Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.**

* * *

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HELL ON THE HUDSON

Last time she was headed to The Underworld, Emma was pulled into a vision with her sister. This time there was no sudden awakening in a broken-down amusement park, though. Instead time passed simply passed and then the fog parted, revealing a reddish sky and a familiar but broken bridge, its middle span collapsed into the water.

Emma turned back to the ferryman for answers, but he merely pointed a pale finger to the shore, to the likeness of the spot she just stepped off from, and the moment she did was vanishing into the fog again.

Far more uncertain than she'd been when she got into the boat, Emma made her way up to the road and walked until she found the first evidence of any inhabitants: a fire-damaged cab, the doors missing. It had the key in the ignition and started when she turned it, as did the CD player which began to play a scratchy rendition of "Only You".

That was more than a little unsettling.

Emma got out of the cab and continued on foot through deserted neighborhoods. She found an abandoned bicycle after awhile and peddled her way past graffiti-covered tenements to the first subway station she could find, but after ten minutes of waiting no train came.

"Train doesn't run here anymore," explained a woman in rags with a cat in her lap.

Frowning, Emma asked, "Then why are you waiting here?"

"Wasn't waiting. Came out of the rain. Has it stopped?"

"It rains in The Underworld?"

"Of course it does," the woman told her. "Are you new here? Hades made it rain whenever he was angry. Poor souls got melted away down the storm drains! Arthur seemed nicer, but..."

The cat jumped from her arms and bounded toward the stairs.

"Stanley! Not so fast! Wait for mummy!"

By the time Emma had followed the crazy cat lady back up to the surface, said lady and her cat were riding away on the bike she'd left propped against the railing.

"Damn it," Emma grumbled and continued to walk, wishing she'd switched her boots for tennis shoes.

It felt like she'd been walking forever while the sky never reflected a change. Only the ruins of landmarks suggesting the distance she'd traveled.

The site of a broken Yankee Stadium reminded that she'd been planning to take Henry to a game before Storybrooke had sucked them back in. That causeway was broken like the bridge, she noticed, this faux Manhattan clearly isolated from the rest of faux New York as she supposed Underbrooke had nothing but the illusion of horizon and trees at the borders to replace big black nothingness.

A car engine suddenly cut through the eerie silence, and soon a familiar roadster appeared, growling around a turn.

The car passed her by, then stopped, backed up, and the window rolled down.

"Don't tell me you went through all that trouble to save your pirate only to get snuffed, darling!"

Emma sighed. "That was my evil twin sister Anna."

"Really? I'm quite sure she went by 'Emma'."

"It's a long and annoying story."

Cruella shrugged. "Well, it's a long and annoying drive back to midtown with all the potholes in this life-foresaken city. I've a craving for Papaya King. Hop in, darling!"

Leery as she was, Emma's feet were killing her - bad choice of words, maybe - so she walked around and got into the passenger seat.

Gunning the engine, Cruella prompted, "So, tell me the long and annoying story of this evil twin, darling!"

* * *

Emma had finished the story by the time Cruella pulled up to Papaya King. The famous restaurant was pretty dilapidated looking and the prices were higher -just like Granny's in Underbrooke - but it was also still popular, people gathered at the tables eating hot dogs and drinking fruit juice.

"Two hotdogs," Cruella ordered, "two beverages. Grape and...?"

"Um... lemonade, I guess," Emma shrugged.

"Hmm," the Blind Witch behind the counter remarked, "I took you for a piña colada girl. _Maybe banana daiquir_ i"

"Sadly, this isn't my rum-chugging murderer," sighed Cruella, pulling out a bottle booze to add to her grape soda. "She's got an evil twin who was impersonating her last time around for some annoying magical reason related to Hades' nutter girlfriend."

"Oh? Did she kill you then?" the Blind Witch asked. "I hear Evil Twins tend to do that to their better halves."

"No. I'm here for my true love," Emma replied and the witch groaned.

"So, Good and Evil, both of 'em have true love on the brain. Well, good luck with that, honey. The Lord of The Underworld isn't one for making deals."

"I was hoping to get an audience with Zeus," said Emma. "My mother was friends with Hercules."

"And I bought an apple off of Aphrodite once," shrugged the Blind Witch, "but that hasn't gotten me an audience with anyone in a toga since I got here. Not that I want one, unless it comes with a pardon. And maybe an orgy."

"Murdering and eating children isn't an easy slate to clean," snorted Cruella.

"And killing your parents and skinning puppy dogs is?"

"Obviously not or I wouldn't have been trying to get myself written back to life, darling. So long as this place exists, bound to the whims of the gods and their laws of judgment, we're screwed. Best to enjoy purgatory and stay away from any ferry docks."

"Cora, the Queen of Hearts, was redeemed," Emma pointed out. "That must count for something."

Cruella snorted. "Oh, is that what you all think? How amusing! No, no, that pretty white light and vision of happiness when someone decides to move on is just a mirage that Hades cooked up. You know, a prank on the most-likely damned."

"Yep," nodded the Blind Witch. "Queen Heartless is burning in the fiery pits of Tartarus, which is essentially Hell, from what King Artie gossiped of his Big Book of Dead People Legal Stuff. Well, technically, she's pushing a millstone twenty-four seven, so I guess Zeus held to his brother's recommended punishment for that back-stabbing cunt. She got me addicted to evil _and_ sweets, you know? I went blind from diabetes!"

"Yes, just tragic," drawled Cruella.

"A real shame about the pirate's hot brother, though," she sighed. "He was sexy _and_ a mass murder. But now he's being drown over and over by demons wearing the faces of the sailors he murdered and their families."

"Oh, please," Cruella sighed. "Liam was never going to sleep with you. He was _gay_."

"What... really?"

"I caught him going at it with James once," she shrugged, "but couldn't convince him to a three-way."

"Wait," Emma interjected, "my uncle was bisexual?"

The Blind Witch blinked at her, incredulous. "You just found out your enemies are suffering unimaginable torment and that's what shocks you? Honey, that prince stuck his dick in any hole he could fit it in."

"I suppose your sister must have inherited his sexual deviance," snorted Cruella. "Although I understand you did bed a flying monkey." She shuddered. "I can't stand hairy men."

Emma sipped her lemonade to avoid that topic.

The Blind Witch recalled, "You know, I think I remember hearing Regina's father fared better..."

"Oh, yes, him," Cruella nodded. "He was given probation, sentenced to indentured servitude in the household of the man he conspired to kill."

"That's right. Regina's husband, Snow White's father, who was also Regina's mother's chaste fiance that Snow White's mother framed for theft and had publicly slut-shamed and exiled to an even poorer kingdom where she gave birth to her rape baby and left it in the woods to grow up into a psychotic rapist before she banged the Dark One whom later both of her daughters also bedded, one by sexual assault, and one by some weird split-personality phantasm that had lost all inhibitions against taking a spin on the dick of a guy she thought of like a father," the Blind Witch recalled.

" _Man_ I wonder if the Titans are using Queen Eva and Cora to torture _each other_ ," she continued, "like Eva's attached to the millstone but can't die, obviously, and probably just insults Cora while being trotted! And then they both have to watch Regina in her glittery get-up and Rumplestiltskin get busy like a couple of skanks."

"Probably," shrugged Cruella. "Though it's less traumatizing than Belle's sex dreams about her own progeny. I did _not_ need to conference in on that call from her poor sweet mum."

"Wait, my grandmother is in Hell?" gasped Emma. "And... Belle's mom is here?"

Cruella rolled her eyes. "Most people eaten alive by ogres who abandon their children to the prospect of arranged marriage to psychopaths have unfinished business, darling. I can only assume being bound to the Dark One in whatever fashion prevented that poor dear from remembering her dreams or she never would have married Rumple... or if she did, wouldn't have treated him the way Gaston treated those baby ogres."

Shrugging, the white-haired woman continued, "As for your granny. You actually presumed otherwise? From what Maleficent and Ursula told me, that self-centered twat only pretended to be a beneficent ruler to get the love of the people. She lapped that up. Just like your mother. If either of them actually cared more about doing the right thing, they wouldn't have done selfish things like making their child promise upon their death to be a perfect pretty princess so as not to ruin their legacy. Or yank out their child's darkness so as not to ruin their legacy. It's a pattern, you see? At this rate, darling, your mummy isn't going straight to the land of heroes and legends. Now that her enemies aren't all locked up to keep them from interfering in Hades plot, when she snuffs it, there will be a mob _fighting_ to throw her in The Hudson. Your family might be _adored_ up there, but down here, there's a lottery going on who gets first dibs. So you might not want to advertise your identity."

"I heard Bo Peep's cousins get to disembowel Prince Charming and then that Woodcutter chap is going to draw and quarter him," recalled the Blind Witch. "Now _that_ is an awful way to go. Before I lost my site from the sugar addiction, I saw some trolls disembowel a man and then rip his arms off and he still wasn't dead."

"Oh, like that _Monty Python_ bit? How delightful!" Cruella cackled.

"I've lost my appetitte," muttered Emma, pushing the rest of her hotdog away.

"Yes, the food is rather substandard," Cruella agreed.

"That's not my fault!" the Blind Witch growled. "The equipment is always broken. _And I'm blind!_ I have to use magic to see and it's really hard sorting out the magical colors from the real colors."

"If I can keep my car running and not looking like the rest of the beat up junkers in this place, darling, you should be able to keep a refrigerator and stove going, blind or not," scoffed Cruella. "I heard we've been getting some 'normal' people here thanks to that portal Emma's brat created in Manhattan. Maybe the next one will be a Cuban ex-pat who can help you keep this ancient machines running."

"Henry is not a brat!" Emma growled.

"Brat, dork, easily manipulated, whatever," shrugged Cruella. "Despite all the mutual admiration society you and Regina seemed to have formed on your parenting skills, darling, you're both shit at it. You'll be lucky if the boy doesn't grow up to kill you both. Well, in your family, I suppose that's actually the rule rather than the acceptation, isn't it? How many relations have your relations murdered in cold blood but you still sit down to Thanksgiving together like you just root for different sports teams. Quite pathetic, calling yourselves heroes and legends and us down here villains and deplorable. You're the ones with blood on your hands who refuse to even see the stains on your souls let alone hold yourselves to the same scales of justice to which you subject those who don't share your blood... or other boldly fluids."

" _None of that was me_ ," snapped Emma. "My sister's the villain apologist and I never got a chance to hold anyone, including myself, accountable for any of that 'shit'. I don't think my family are better than either you because we're both or have some screwed up relation by marriage or cross-generational screwing. I'm here because my family's selfishness and hypocrisy and last field trip here got my true love killed and trapped in this fucking purgatory!"

"Well, in that case," the Blind Witch returned, "lunch is on the house. Not many of your kind around here who'll admit their shit stinks as bad as the rest of us. All the goody-goody snobs in their Central Park West penthouses refusing to admit they did bad things that got them here while we're stuck in East Harlem being mugged and worse by Land Pirates, reminded every day of the crimes we committed. That's the thing. You got labeled a _villain_ in your story, you don't have the luxury to deny it. But the assholes in heroes clothing? If that damned pen wasn't explicit in what kind of people they really were? They can live here as long as they want in denial, pretending they're just not ready to give up earthly things or that there's really some relative they desperately need to meet when they kick it to get closure on their pathetic lives."

"You're saying it's the fault of The Authors that there's literary-based discrimination in the Afterlife?" asked Emma.

"Of course," answered Cruella. "That pen your boy acquired is one of the most powerful and evil and misunderstood magical objects in all the realms. Not quite as powerful as Zeus' crystallized jizz, but quite close."

"Hold on... I touched god spunk!?"

"Well, most of the inhabitants of Mt. Olympus have what with all the orgies," snorted the Blind Witch. "Lucky that thing didn't knock you up! Or your sister up? I understand Zeus made a lot of demi-god babies back in the day getting unsuspecting maidens to stroke his Olympian Crystal."

"Wonderful," winced Emma.

"I wouldn't know. I've never got to attend one of Zeus' orgies," she griped.

"A pity we can't have them down here, really," mused Cruella. "It would surely cheer up a lot of... frustrated souls. Sadly, you can't have the things you love the most. Killing and fucking... and good food."

"You got your car," Emma pointed out.

"Yes, well, it gets keyed and jacked almost every day, so the upkeep is quite a pain," she complained. "Though better having even pot-hole-riddled roads to drive it on than the cobblestoned, mud-pit messes Arthur would have implemented if allowed. We at least have little Henry to thank for _that_."

"Henry is why this place looks like New York?" Emma asked, surprised. "Because of that portal?"

Cruella shrugged and told her, "Well he _is_ The Author, isn't he? He's just... not very good at it and clearly doesn't understand the scope of his, let's be honest, terribly lame powers. Yes, the pen is super powerful, but in the hands of a little boy with no magic in a land with far more depleted magic than The Enchanted Forest? It's a waste, really. And a recipe for disaster since it was never meant to record worlds such as the one he was born into. Conflicting magic, you see? It creates dangerous portals that somehow always seem to cause problems _down here_ while you just go about your day."

"Speaking of, I really need to go about finding Zeus," Emma reminded.

"I told you, honey," sighed the Blind Witch, "you can't just get an audience with Zeus, no matter who your mother knows. You have to go through our local lord and _if_ he agrees he can _try_ to get you an audience to help your true love, but even if you do, there's always a price. You can't just bring back the dead."

"I know that," Emma grimaced. "I just want to help him move on. He was tricked into making some kind of deal with Zeus because of my sister to bring back _her_ true love and it got him trapped here, unable to move on."

"Well, that's a bitch. Stuck in death's version of Rikers, awaiting a never-coming trial date," cackled Cruella. "And for your sister and her boyfriend? How atrocious! I'd rather dogs mauled my face off than make any kind of deal to help Slutty Sandra Dee and Douchy Danny Zuko."

Rubbing her temples, Emma asked, "Can you just take me to your leader?"

"Don't need to, darling." Cruella pointed a manicured finger toward a man in a black three piece suit with head down coming from the direction of Central Park.

The Blind Witch shouted, "HEY, MY LORD, YOU HAVE A VISITOR!"

Emma frowned, because he sure wasn't dressed like King Arthur. Then the man got closer and her smoothie fell out of her hand and splashed all over her boots, but she hardly noticed.

"NEAL!?"

He was dressed in the suit he'd been buried in, the only 'nice' clothes she'd found in his motel room, that she remembered smelled like Central Park and pizza and had subway tickets in the pockets.

Neal blinked at her, maybe thrown-off by her glasses for a moment, and then uttered over the silence that had followed her exclamation, "Shit."

He backed away, because of course he would, ducking out of her sight. Emma took off, caught by the feeling of deja vu, but when she rounded the corner, it was Neal who grabbed her arm, spinning her and stopping her forward momentum, nearly throwing them both the ground.

She stared.

He stared.

 _"You're_ the Lord of the Underworld!?" she finally shouted.

"Emma," Neal sighed, "you shouldn't have come."

"I don't care! You're Lord of the fucking Underworld, Neal! You could have mentioned that when you were apparently strangling Hook!"

"I was hoping you wouldn't come!"

"Just like last time?" Emma snapped. "Well fat lot of good that did! I thought you were in a good place! Instead you bargained your soul for my sister's dipshit boyfriend!"

She slapped him, because she'd wanted to do that ever since the street in Manhattan. But then she kissed him, because she'd wanted to do that ever since exactly the same time. It wasn't the hard, deep, lust-driven sort that her sister and Hook seemed singularly capable of, but one of longing and sweetness that she hoped would free Neal while fearing he would pull away.

Neither happened.

There was a moment of soul-shattering disappointment at the lack of rainbow light and beating heart, but the warmth of Neal's lips and the touch of his callused fingers against her face brushed that aside for the joy and connection of the moment.

It was only a moment, though. Emma pulled away as the anguish in her chest rose again. "You're an idiot. Why do you keep trusting people who fuck us over, Neal!?"

"I made the deal after you'd come and gone, Emma," he sighed, "or rather your sister had. I didn't know. I just wanted to convince you not to come here. When I saw that I couldn't... seemed better for you and Henry if I was in a good place rather than staying in a room at Granny's. I thought, when it was over, I'd be able to move on and then I _would_ be in a good place."

Emma regarded him sadly. "The real rooms at Granny's are awful enough. You were really going to endure that hell because you thought if I had to choose, I'd choose Hook?"

"You already had, hadn't you? Or I thought it was you who had," he shrugged, "and that even if you'd choose me for Henry, you'd be unhappy. And he... the kid only knew me for a couple of days. I'm more of a concept than a person to Henry."

"You deserved to be a person to him, he deserved to have his father more than I deserved a syphilitic pirate, Neal!"

"I wasn't blind to that flirting at the Town Line, Emma," he reminded. "The way Hook looked at you in my hospital room and you weren't exactly adverse to it..."

Sighing, Emma answered, "My sister's influences got stronger when we went to Neverland. The pixie dust, the magic that makes everyone juvenile assholes, maybe, who knows? It was her feeling those things, though, not me. As soon as I was free, I knew that. But it was _me_ who felt guilty that I couldn't save you when she went after Hook. It was _me_ who called after you, who wasn't ready to let you go back into that light.

"I really thought you were happy," she sniffed. "Why didn't you move on as soon as you got here?"

"I was trying to work up the nerve to confront my mom," Neal explained, running a hand over his face. "You know how that worked out."

"I'm sorry," Emma uttered, angry that this was the impossibly unfair situation they'd found themselves in. "My sister never should have brought your father here, never demanded his help. It should have been obvious Hades would dispose of her, any impediment to their asshole love story he was using as a distraction from his plan."

Grimacing, Neal corrected, "It was actually my father who threw her in. Hades was blackmailing him. I'm not sure he felt bad about it, though. He hated my mother and she hated him. I hated her when I got here, but I watched her with those kids, I talked to people..."

"She felt horrible for what she'd done to you," Emma told him with her a grimace of her own. As horrible as Milah had been as a mother, she had been remorseful, and it didn't make Emma feel particularly good that the woman who just wanted to say "I'm sorry" to her son got thrown in that river thinking her son's one true love had jumped into bed with her own deadbeat lover before she'd even got to see him. It couldn't feel very good to think her loving Hook and then getting herself killed by her estranged husband had ended up screwing her kid over twice.

"I know. I was going to help her move on," sighed Neal, "but then I overheard Hades talking with Cora. Found out you'd been the Dark One, made Hook another Dark One, then killed him and were setting out to resurrect him, which Hades saw as the perfect opportunity to get to Storybrooke, flip the living and the dead, hold the souls of those he trapped in The Underworld ransom in his revenge against his brother."

"So you tried to warn me."

"But didn't figure I'd have much luck. You were always stubborn, and love makes people even more-so, to the point of stupidity, usually," he winced, examining his still-marked palm.

"My sister's even more stubborn, I think," mused Emma, "and definitely more stupidly impulsive for her so-called love. I wouldn't call a desperate obsession out of fear of being alone for a guy she dated a month who kept trying to kill her family 'true love' of the variety that can pass a test _not_ rigged by a god. But they do seem weirdly happy, if at least a good match in being a couple of nimpho jerks."

"Well, I guess that's something then," Neal deadpanned. "My sacrifice wasn't entirely in vane."

"Your sacrifice was as stupid and pointless as Anna coming here for Hook!" Emma argued. "Everyone screwed you over, Neal. Zelena, your dad, me. Everyone who was supposed to fight for you and for true love and for justice let you down. But you kept fighting for me and for Henry."

Emma sniffled and exhaled. "I don't deserve you."

"Hey," Neal argued, "your sister might not be good enough for Hook, but you deserve nothing but the best, Emma. I know you would have fought for me back then if you'd been given the chance. If anything, when I left you, when I trusted August, I thought you deserved better. A princess. A savior."

"No one gets to say what I deserve but me," Emma argued. "All my life I had people telling me didn't deserve this because I was a pathetic orphan criminal or I did deserve that because I was a savior and a princess. And it was all bullshit! None of those people actually knew me! Not even my parents who keep trying to shove their well-meaning but stupid and guilt-driven advice down my throat. I'm not some royal messiah or a number. I'm _me_. I'm _Emma_. And you're the _only one_ I ever really got to be that with.

"And it's not fair!" she cried. "I can't bring you back. I can't help you move on. You're just stuck here for eternity pushing papers for the gods! What happens when I die? When Henry dies? How do we just move on to some happy place while you're here, in a place even worse than Neverland?"

Neal shrugged and answered, "You just do. You go back, you live your life, and hopefully a long time from now when you're old and wrinkly instead of felled by some douchey villain like lame-ass savior prophesy dictates," he smiled a little, "you'll die without any more regrets, surrounded by the people you love, as 'just Emma' and go straight to Heaven."

"Will you still love me when I'm old and wrinkly?" Emma retorted, forcing her own smile.

"Even if you keep your teeth in a glass by the side of the bed," Neal insisted, leaning over to kiss her forehead. "You're my one true love, Emma Swan," he stated with a sad smile, "but you've got a life to live, and you deserve more than one true love, especially one who can't share that life with you."

"But all I want is you," Emma argued.

"As the philosopher Mic Jaggar said, you can't always ge-"

Emma silenced him with a kiss and then told him, "If we can't have Tallahasee, we at least deserve one good moment in Hell."

* * *

It was wrong for there to be no heartbeat beneath the swirls of ink on his chest.

Emma ran her index finger over the word 'Ohana', what she'd eventually found out was Hawai'ian for 'family' and not an ex-girlfriend as Neal had claimed. She'd never gotten the chance to ask when or why he'd gotten it, but that didn't seem particularly important now and maybe some mysterious should remain...

"There has to be a way out of this. So you can... can at least move on," Emma insisted, her head resting on Neal's shoulder.

"You think I haven't researched it?" he sighed. "Hades had a shit-ton of notes on his own schemes to get his heart jump-started, to unbind himself from the sentence his brother gave him to rule this place. And it took that creepy crystal and still didn't work in the end. I'm not a cursed god either. I'm a dead mortal. My heart's rotting away back in Storybrooke, not frozen by a spell. I'm just... a corporealized manifestation of a soul that thanks to the magic of this place has substance like everything else."

"Does that make me a spirit necrophiliac like my sister?" Emma joked. "Seriously, Neal, that doesn't mean there isn't an answer. You researched destroying magic and didn't find that anti-Grail that Henry did right under your nose. Maybe you just don't know what you're looking for, don't have all the pieces-"

"I took a binding oath in the River Styx, Em," Neal told her while running his fingers through her hair. "And kissing my heal isn't gonna get me out of it. And, anyway, I only researched that for a couple of months after getting to the Land Without Magic. I only told Henry about my journal cause of his wishing well bomb plan, which in retrospect was a bad idea. Either I misrepresented that 'plan' or he just-"

"Misunderstood because he was a twelve year old boy going through Neverland accelerated puberty hormone craziness who went from turning everything into an epic operation with a code name to dangerous, delinquent behavior based on half-assed information?" snorted Emma.

"Yeah, well I'd only just met him. You could have warned me. And I didn't know he was gonna get swiped by Pan."

"I know," Emma conceded. "Maybe you'd even have told me about Pan, but I didn't want to talk to you. But at the same time I really _wanted_ to talk to you. I'm not sure how much was my sister and my just being scared that I still loved you and you were with someone else. And then you weren't with someone else and that was even scarier. Plus the whole thing where this crazy woman named Ingrid who was my foster mother before I was on the streets and who was a witch queen from some magical kingdom called Arendelle took some of my memories related to magic so I lost the memories of us connected to those memories and was probably angrier with you about not telling me the truth than I would have been if I remembered at the time that I'd told you how the crazy bitch threw me in front of a speeding car to try to get me to do magic so I ran away from the foster system."

"I remember you talking about her. And I heard about her too," Neal recalled. "She reunited with her sisters and they moved on together, I think."

"It's like fate was working against us," Emma complained. "And also, I'm not good with love," she sighed. "My sister's better. Or, at least, I think she was when she wasn't fighting against my 'reservations' at being with Hook and hang-ups over losing you and fighting for what she believes is love which really isn't and so maybe that's why it's easier for her," she considered.

Shifting a little to look out at the reddish sky, Emma continued, "It was easier to love when I lived in New York in that fake life, even though I'd still been hurt by you, even though I didn't even know what really happened, which doesn't make sense other than that wasn't me. It was the me Regina hoped she could have been so Henry could be happy, who had her memories and knew how to make lasagna but also knew how to love him so he wasn't lonely and messed up. I wish I really could have been that person... or my own better me version of that person who was the kind of mother Henry deserves."

Biting her lip, Emma said, though she knew it wasn't a real option,. "I could stay. Henry has Regina and my parents. And my sister. It's not like they weren't all prepared once to lose me."

"That's the sort of thing your sister would do, not you."

"I know," she sighed. "And my mom. It's what my mom was going to do in Neverland. She can be horribly selfish sometimes in the name of love. And just kind of dumb. She actually thanked Regina for teaching her the meaning of hope through murdering her father and trying to kill her and me and ruining everyone's lives. I think she might have brain damage or something. And I don't want to be like that, or like Anna. But I don't want to have to lose you because this stupid savior shit put a target on the back of everyone I've ever loved either. I wish I _could_ just give it up and-"

Suddenly an alarm sounded, the sort of old-timey air raid siren that Emma remembered from tornado warnings in the Midwest. Before she'd even sat up in startlement, there was a flash of silvery smoke and a _woman_ appeared at the foot of the bed.

She was birdlike and had armor on over a short toga. She also completely ignored Emma as she addressed Neal.

"We have a problem. Mors is dead. The Prisoner has escaped."

Neal's eyes widened. "Aw hell!"

"We must go," the woman stated and another swirl of smoke carried them all to stand outside a replica of the library where Henry had made his speech and which was now engulfed in flames.

Emma was too started by the inferno to realize that she was still naked until Neal chastised the strange woman, presumably a goddess, "Some clothes maybe?"

"You humans, so prudish," she sighed and snapped her fingers, dressing them in togas.

"Can the fire be stopped?" asked Neal.

"No. Somehow The Prisoner was able to get water from The River of Fire. Obviously he had accomplices, we assume demons that may have slipped out of Tartarus when _she_ arrived," the woman finally looked at Emma, "like that one who murdered Morpheus after her sister and her family came here."

"Wait," Emma interjected, "you mean Belle's kid-"

"A demon killed a god as part of a plan to help The Prisoner escape. But the plan ultimately failed. We recaptured the demon who was possessing The Dark One's child and Zeus did his best to... alter memories and magic so that this terrible laps in security was never known to you mortals."

"Who is this prisoner?" asked Emma, not really that shocked by the demon possession thing. "And who are you?"

"I am Alecto, on of the Furies, agents of justice," the woman explained. "The high gods have long since forgotten the particulars of justice, but us lower deities, the Furies, the Muses, the Virtues, we still try to uphold our duties honorably. As did Thanatos, Bringer of Death. Now killed by a very dangerous man."

"How is that even possible?" Neal demanded. "How do you _kill_ death?"

"It would seem the weakening of the barriers between this realm and the so-called 'Land Without Magic' created by the summoning of the Dark Ones and the unsanctioned portals Hades created to transport living mortals back there, to say nothing of your 'deal' and the paradoxes created by time travel that echo still like the discordant tune of a broken harp," Alecto scoffed, "made his previously incorruptible state less invincible. We should have suspected as much if a demon was able to impersonate Morpheus to access the mortal world after resurrecting that pirate. If Zeus hadn't been drunk and angry with his sister-wife and ex-mistress for granting Persephone first dibs on Hades' souls for her own torment-"

"Yeah, yeah, he was feeling particularly pro-save-an-asshole-who-hates-women-while-loving-to-bang-as-many-of-them-as-often-as-he-can," sighed Neal. "Get back to the part where Fairytale Hitler escaped."

"He then took Charon hostage using Mors' sword," answered Alecto, "and forced the ferryman to take him to the land of the living where he hit Charon with water from the River of Forgetfulness. Since the books have all been burned and he is using the same water to conceal his location, there is no way to know where he has landed, though one can make educated guesses."

Neal scrubbed a hand over his face and asked, "I suppose because _Death_ is dead and he was the one to kill him, he gets instant quasi-non-dead status or something too?"

"I would not put it in those words," the bird woman sighed, "but essentially that is so. He will be able to reunite his soul and body to permanently reassert his living status as Sysiphus did and orchestrate a things such that when Thanatos is replaced and death is no longer suspended for mortal kind-"

"A lot of people could die," Emma surmised.

"At least the bit about regaining his body narrows down the 'where' considerably," said Neal and the goddess nodded.

"Given his obsession over the centuries and Sysiphus' success, it is logical. My sisters and I have been dispatched to bring him and his conspirators in, but he is cunning. He avoided Thanatos for many generations with the help of his scribes who witlessly or by their own amoral intentions linked his false immortality to some magical beneficence of Merlin's. Finding him before he causes more harm may not be possible."

"Does Merlin know?"

"I have not yet informed him."

"Great," Neal sighed. "I guess I get the honors. Zeus?"

"Charon went to prostrate himself and beg forgiveness for his lack of vigilance."

Alecto vanished without a farewell after which Neal groaned, "I suppose that's next on my list then. Fan-fucking-tastic."

"I'm lost here," Emma cut in. "Death got killed by some prisoner who wants to be alive again?"

"Yeah. Like Alecto said, on the bright side, until he's replaced, no one from our world can die. On the not as bright side, The Apprentice can still cause all kinds of horrific shit that'll make everyone wish they could die and then set things up to ensure they do. That old geezer is one sadistic motherfucker."

Emma cocked her head. "Wait.. you don't mean... _Merlin's apprentice_ is _evil_?"

"Yeah, pretty much," groaned Neal. "I've been interrogating the bastard for months, but he's worse than Hannibal Lector. That old geezer could manipulate generations, cross worlds, and probably knows how to free my mom and those innocent souls left in torment considering how shady smart he is. But I've got no idea what he's up to, not specifically anyway. I'm pretty much a fuck up at my job."

"I guess that makes two of us then, huh?"

"Hey, you were a pretty good savior," Neal argued, walking down the empty street as the library burned. "I bet if you hadn't had your sister cramping your morals and common sense you'd have been great. So you _can_ be great."

"And alone," Emma complained. "It seemed like that 'curse' was broken, but it wasn't. It was just because my sister wasn't _really_ a savior, she was just borrowing that power. She could have her cake and eat it too as long as she was in control. Now she gets to be free and happy while I have all the responsibilities back."

Shaking her head, Emma admitted, "She's right that I'm jealous. Not of her and Hook, but just that she doesn't have to worry about responsibilities and destiny and putting other people first. I remember what that's like, before I came to Storybrooke, and maybe my life wasn't great, but it was _mine_ and I miss that. And it feels like... like part of this stupid savior curse is that I couldn't save the one person who'd make my happy ending complete, like it _knows_ somehow, like it's a way to keep me from choosing to give up my 'powers', because I don't know how to be just me and happy and normal without you."

"I wish I had an answer for you," Neal sighed. "I wish I could fix this, Emma. The gods have messed up a lot, put responsibilities on mortals that no one should have because of mistakes they made and it's not fair. I made my choice here. You didn't get one. And maybe that's partly on me for not telling you-"

"If it's on anyone it's August," Emma snorted, following Neal into The Blarney Stone which had no business being in this location, but she didn't question it, "Anna's other drunk manslut."

"Yeah, it'd be tempting not to push him in that river if he dies, but he's not exactly _real_ so he might just cease to exist or turn into another tree or something. Of course, that assumes we can stop a crazy old man from potentially destroying existence."

"You really think he could do that?"

"Oh, he could," said the man behind the bar and Emma startled.

They'd found Merlin and he did not look happy to see them.

* * *

AN: It occurred to me that given I said this story starts 6-12 months after Season 6's events, Henry couldn't be old enough to get even a driver's permit when this story takes place. The show just stated that it's Fall. It must be Fall 2013. Henry is in Middle School, presumably starting the 6th grade, even though Jared is way older now (unless he got to skip a grade and is in 7th because he continued to go to school in NYC while everyone else was shitting in the woods for a year). Still, he won't even turn 13 until Spring 2014 and this story takes place (at least presently) between Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 so here Henry is a few months shy of 14 and could only get a permit in Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, North/South Dakota, Wyoming at that age. So I fixed that bit in Chapter 5. Henry has just been taking advantage of Charming wanting to be cooler than Hook... and manipulating people that he needs to learn how to drive for his own safety what with all the crap that goes down in town (and isn't a bad justification, really). I'm going to guess that Storybrooke, would have its own rules on driver's permits and licenses and might issue them younger for such an isolated and rural place. Some states do allow kids as young as 13 to operate things like tractors on public roadways required to access parts of private property.

Next up: Merlin laments his own purgatory and his apprentice plots.


	12. The Hall of Orgies

**Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.**

 **Chapter Note: Just so you know, I picture the *real* Zeus as played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson if you want to make that your headcanon for this chapter!**

* * *

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE HALL OF ORGIES

"M-Merlin, hey," Emma choked out at the man behind the bar. That bar which had an interior very much like the quasi-Rabbit Hole that Liam Jones had run.

The Sorcerer lifted a brow slightly at her nervousness and then responded as he dried a glass, "I know it was your sister who aided in my demise. I don't hold her actions against you."

"Did you know about her then?" asked Emma.

"I knew the moment your mother found out she was pregnant that she carried twins, and that there was a blood curse upon your line," Merlin answered. "I was trapped in a magical tree. All magical trees are connected."

"The Tree of Wisdom," Emma remembered.

"Yes. But I couldn't see everything. And once you merged, that I could not see from my prison. I feared the curse had succeeded, though it seemed impossible a Savior could be born an Evil Twin even if that aberration would have absorbed your special magic as she killed you in the womb. When Emma Swan came to me as the Dark One, I had to assume that you were lost."

-276"That's why you gave me that warning," Emma realized, taking a seat at the bar with Neal, "when I was little. You hoped I wasn't too... evil yet. That I would remember."

"And perhaps you would have, but your sister did not."

"No, she didn't," Emma sighed and picked at a coaster. "Selective memory seems to be a thing with us, more with her. Not that I can entirely blame her. She was stuck living my life, recording all the things I liked doing as part of her past even if she hated them, so I think she just blocked some things out. I tried to do that when she took over. Managed somewhat with her 'true love'."

"Yes, I do regret that Hades kept me from tossing Killian Jones in the River of Lost Souls to spend forever tormented by his previous lover, Baelfire's mother," mused Merlin as he cleaned another glass. "But I suppose being besotted with a magically-conceived sociopath, whose very existence is an affront to nature, knowing that anything like love she designs to return is simply a facsimile of your actual ability to feel love, a mimicry based on your experiences of the past you shared, is some sort of punishment. But then again, the pirate did seem to be a psychopath himself well before he became the Dark One, so perhaps they are a well-suited, codependent, empathy-devoid pair of pathological narcissists."

"Sounds about right," grimaced Emma.

"Anyway, as to my apprentice," Merlin continued while placing the clean glass in a tray on the bar, "even with such powers I could not see beyond death. And so I could never be certain what he was up to or if he had the knowledge and cunning to succeed in whatever terrible, laws-of-nature-defying scheme he had long been working on in secret, though I have my suspicions. Which, I assume, is why you are here. He has escaped, hasn't he?"

"Yes," confirmed Neal. "He killed Thanatos and ferry-jacked Charon to take him somewhere, then sent him back mind-wiped, so I'd say we could all use a drink, bartender."

Merlin smirked slightly and took a bottle off the shelf, pouring it's amber contents into highball glasses as he spoke, "Zeus was foolish, too sure of his own power to just destroy him. That's always been the problem with the gods. They should have learned from Prometheus, but they did not. And no doubt my old apprentice wants to do more than simply bring fire to mankind. More likely to burn it."

"You think he wants to destroy The Enchanted Forest?" Neal asked, disturbed.

"The Enchanted Forest. Storybrooke. The Underworld. Ultimately Mt. Olympus. All roads lead there, but after Hades plot increased security, he had no hope of ever getting there simply by deciding to 'move on', and once he meddled with The Rivers and pulling demons out of Tartarus, any attempts to destroy the gods would have to come in a rather convoluted way, one I'm sure he long had planned should other methods not work - assuming it was not, actually, his first plan all along and everything else was just misdirection."

"Why would he want to destroy Mt. Olympus?" Emma asked.

"A few reasons, though I think the primary one is not for the benefit of humanity but rather that he is completely unstable," answered Merlin. " At least Nimue and your grandmother had... logical reasons of a sort for their actions against the people of magical worlds, but I see only vengeance-fueled Armageddon. Our worlds, what happened to your family over the generations and here are to him nothing but collateral damage to take out Mt. Olympus."

After a pause, Merlin expanded, "I do feel some responsibility for what he has become. You see, after I was trapped by Nimue, the lad was on his own to stop her. He failed. And did so repeatedly as the curse was passed down through the generations. He became obsessed and used magic not meant for mortals to augment himself, to bind himself, all-be-it tenuously, to the curse so that as long as it remained bound to human souls, he would not age and would be able to continue acting as a gatekeeper of sorts to prevent The Darkness from being fully unleashed in its true demonic form. But he became tired and embittered and at some point, obviously, he chose the path he once fought against - to free The Darkness. He _knew_ my hat could not contain it. It was a plan I long ago abandoned after realizing that even if I could separate the curse from Nimue, there was no way to contain it."

"He played everyone," sighed Neal. "Made them think he could contain it, but he knew it would get out. And he _also_ knew that even if it went for the darkest heart first, it would end up targeting Emma and her sister."

"No doubt," nodded Merlin. "He would have known about the blood curse and designed his spell to do more than he told your parents," he explained to Emma, "ensuring that you survived the curse, that you absorbed your sister into yourself to fill the void he created - but that your twin would not remain subverted forever. He needed you to both be a savior and yet make choices a true savior would not, and that was most easily done with Anna in charge, compelled by a borrowed destiny in the key moments a savior is depended upon, but otherwise at the mercy of her selfish whims to set the pieces on his chess board."

Shaking his head, Merlin concluded, "Your savior light magic would naturally repel The Darkness as much as Anna's curse would call to it. The dagger broke that equilibrium. And he got his means to kill me at the expense of his own life, setting the final stages of his plot in motion."

"And what's the next step in his plot?" asked Emma.

"My guess? To unbind the worlds from being slaves to the gods so that he can reform that connection with himself as the ultimate god... to destroy what the gods hold most dear."

Emma frowned, confused. "What do you mean 'slaves to the gods'?" she inquired and noticed Neal grimace deeply. "What?"

"Those books. That quill. The whole 'Author' thing," Neal told her, "it's a sham. They're what binds magical realms to the gods and ensures that all of the souls recorded in those books, by that quill, in the hands of a 'chosen' Author come _here_."

"You really believe _this_ is The Afterlife?" Merlin questioned Emma. "Or even that a mountain and fields the gods play in is what we are supposed to aspire toward? These places are no different than the other magical realms of more unusual properties, like the ones created by genies - just far more _real_ even if the laws are more creative - like giving physical form to souls whose bodies expired in other realms."

"That's why that old geezer was collecting all the unused books," Neal explained while raking a hand through his hair in frustration. "Bound to the wrong person, as that Isaac guy proved, they're dangerous. From what little I could get out of him, he manipulated events and people, including Isaac, to ensure that Henry became the _last_ Author."

"If Isaac had been smarter than he was greedy," sighed Merlin, "he could have found a way to turn his story into an actual realm the way the gods have created magical realms to fill them with more souls, to then cull those souls upon death as their toys. Instead he was just another pawn."

"So..." Emma frowned and soused out, "you're saying that everything my family went through, with Hook, with Robin, the people that got tossed in that river... it's all... like bedtime stories for the gods to tell their incest kids or something?"

"Yep," Neal confirmed, his mood souring further at just what a shitty deal he'd made.

"We are forever kept out of where we're _really_ supposed to go as long as that magical pen exists and the literal _binding_ spell remains," nodded Merlin. "We have no true free will, not when anything that seems even as fate is really the foreshadowing of that ink and parchment for a destiny that ends in the realm of the gods, be it this farcical purgatory of our failures, the unending torture of Tartarus, or the infinite perfect acid trip of Elyssium.

"Your family," he scoffed in dismay, "sent off on those ferries with looks of hope, believing they would finally move on to some higher awareness, some freedom from the torments of the mortal soul simply bought into the lies Hades perpetuated for his brother, perhaps which he himself sought to escape and might even have helped my former apprentice before his demise. No unapologetic murders would be sent off in such a fashion simply for hugging it out with their estranged relations. But there is no freedom for those who die bound to those books, only being allowed to move on to new stories to entertain the gods. We all simply move from one part of their world to another, lighter or darker, but still far removed from the mysteries that lie beyond such petty whims as those of Zeus and his consorts."

"So, we just break the spells then," Emma surmised. "Break the quill, burn the books, and presto, no more magical world satellite TV on Mt. Olympus."

"Anyone in the books can't destroy them," imparted Neal. "It's a fail-safe. Part of the reason, I think, Authors were always found from a world not bound to the book."

"Until your son bound the Land without Magic to it," Merlin explained darkly. "Which has been causing disruptions here. And was probably also part of the dastardly plot."

"Yeah, Cruella mentioned the portal," Emma recalled with a frown, thinking on what Merlin and Neal had said. After a moment, she realized, "My sister isn't in that book, is she? I mean, all of those stories that Henry wrote down, he wrote them down as if they're about _me_. He never wrote her name, because she didn't have one."

At least, Emma hoped that Henry hadn't been editing things.

"Names have power," Neal smiled a little.

"And sometimes the nameless have the most," agreed Merlin.

"So, I get the quill before this asshole does and break it again," Emma considered, "and Anna destroys the books. And then we're all free."

"Simply breaking the quill again will not work. It naturally reverts to this realm. Presumably The River of Fire could destroy it as well as the gold bindings of the books, but that's assuming you can get Zeus to part with his collection of mortals - and some of the rather volatile water."

"Well, considering there's a real possibility this nutjob wants to destroy all the worlds he created with that damn pen so that's the end of his soul factories _and_ might just succeed in actually destroying Mt. Olympus itself, maybe he'll listen," huffed Emma before downing her bourbon.

She cracked the empty glass on the bar and addressed Neal, "Well, how do we get to that fancy-ass mountain of the gods, Mister Lord of The Underworld?"

* * *

The Library had burned to the ground, but the subterranean chamber remained along with one of the ferry boats Emma remembered Liam taking. It was all very eerie and smoky and she found it difficult to breath, something that didn't seem to affect Neal or Merlin. Another reminder that her companions were _dead_.

"Charon only ferries souls from the land of the living. These work on their own, sort of like a carnival ride," Neal explained, helping her in, "with only one destination."

There was no mirage when a white portal opened up, nothing like the sailing ships she'd seen then or what Regina had described for either of her parents. It was just a blinding light. And then it faded, the boat docked by white marble steps.

"Halls of Justice," Neal announced and led the way into a column lined corridor where a young man in robes was waiting.

Emma recognized him instantly from Henry's book, from the story he'd written after Hook's return. "Zeus?"

"What souls have you brought me, Lord Baelfire?" the man inquired in an imposing voice.

Neal rolled his eyes. "Oh, cut the crap, Todd, and just make sure the boat stays here. I don't want to have to get dragged back to The Underworld by Alecto. And no pranks. Medusa was not happy about you borrowing her three-eyed toads and I was even less happy about them breeding like Tribbles and infesting my dungeon."

"My name is Theophilus!" the toga-clad young man griped. "And I am not a three-eyed toad thief!"

Passing him by, Emma asked Neal in confusion, "Wait, that's _not_ Zeus? That's-?"

"Todd, the boat valet," Neal snorted. "Zeus' third cousin twice removed... maybe. The whole incest thing with the gods makes that kind of confusing."

"I think Zeus father's brother impregnated a Centaur who was also related to Zeus' mother," interjected Merlin.

"Yeah, whatever the case, Todd is the result," shrugged Neal. "He looks about sixteen, but supposedly is hung like a horse. He's popular at the orgies. And he _definitely_ put toads in my boat."

"Then why did Hook think he was Zeus?"

"Zeus won't show his face to most mortals," Neal explained. "He has Todd be his stand in while he does his magic behind some column. He certainly wasn't going to show his face to a bastard like Hook who was known for betraying people he was allied with and that had helped him and was particularly close to his new Author."

"Who was also my wayward apprentices new Author," lamented Merlin.

"Zeus needed a new Lord, but that doesn't mean he was thrilled with the trade," Neal continued. "He's generally not against ignoring bad behavior if it suits his motives, but Hook's always been a wild card prone to impulsive stupidity. Too much like Hades for Zeus to spare him out of any kindness. He'd also already almost gotten Henry killed on several occasions and Zeus wasn't looking to have to find a new Author again."

Emma grimaced and she followed the two dead men through a series of hallways, up stairs, around corners, through what seemed to be a series of interconnected buildings until they reached the bottom of a grand staircase leading to a golden door guarded by a guy with hooves.

"We need to see Zeus," Neal called up to the guard who sniffed the air creepily and then narrowed his eyes.

"Living mortals are forbidden from Zeus' chamber, even ones who share the bed of the so-called Lord of The Underworld. And there are no dead souls on the guest list for today."

Neal put on his best tough-guy act, which wasn't easy in a toga. "Don't fuck with me today, goat boy!" he snapped. "I may not have been sired by some pansexual freak show or popped out of Zeus' forehead, but my old man is the Dark One, Merlin here gave that beastie human form, and Emma may be from the land of the living, but she's a savior with powers I'm pretty sure you don't have. So you're gonna let us in, or we're gonna stick you on a spit over the River of Fire and have barbecued whatever-the-unnatural-fuck you are for dinner!"

The guard scowled, but opened the door for them.

Emma lifted a brow at Neal, telling him, "I think I kind of get my sister being turned on by the asshole thing. I'm not sure how to feel about that..."

Neal laughed at that and told her, "The gods don't like me much. No surprise. They still pretty much snub Persephone. I understand there's a lot of opposition to Zeus allowing Hercules' girlfriend to eat ambrosia and become immortal too."

"Well, she was kind of annoyingly damsally," Emma recalled on the walk up the stairs. "And making immortal some girl your son just met and fell for over some three-headed dog hunt seems dumb."

"Hence the prevalence of people in magical worlds falling in love at first sight over absurd incidents of mortal peril followed by a quick shag, wedding, and procreation like the world will end otherwise," imparted Merlin. "What is put down in the books to please Zeus and his minions," he scowled at the goat boy guard, "influences the magical gestalt which inspires the... shall we say 'emotional intelligence' of mortals in our worlds."

"So, what you're saying," Emma surprised, "is that the gods are making us stupid about love because they're emotionally stunted like dumb, horny teenagers?"

"Something like that," sighed Merlin as they entered.

Whatever Emma was expecting of Zeus' chambers, this was not it, but it did lend to the stupid-making theory. The place was filled with fancy pillows that were filled with passed out, naked and half naked people and some only half people who must have resulted from gods screwing animals like the goat guy. It looked like Salvador Dali had painted an orgy and an animal sacrifice.

With one fat guy at the center in a wine-stained toga who raised a challis at them.

"Late to the party, Lord Baelfire! Mind if I borrow your wench for a few? I won't soil her too much!"

Emma lunged at the fat man, threatening, "I'll make you soil your pants, you disgusting-"

Neal pulled her back and glared at the fat man, telling him, "She's not my orgy groupie, Dionysus. She's the mother of my kid. Hit on her again-"

"Yes yes! Terribly sorry!" Dionysus apologized. "Not really a place people in love tend to come, you know. Lots of _coming_ otherwise, if you catch my-"

"Where is Zeus?" Neal cut him off.

"Um... last I saw he was breaking out an older vintage after raining down his wrath upon poor Charon. Lad won't be piloting any boats again. Not that he'd have any job what with Death being dead, of course. But if I were you, I'd cover my genitals or your true love might not be able to enjoy them after Zeus is done with you."

Neal scowled. "Thanks for the advice."

Frowning herself, Emma walked with Neal and Merlin through piles of passed out, fluid-encrusted orgy people and past ornate fountains of wine and chocolate, to another room that was full of barrels and amphorae. There a very heavily muscled and naked man with bronzed skin and slicked-back dark hair adorned with a golden laurel crown was pouring the contents of one of the latter into a large goblet.

"So, Baelfire," Zeus began without looking up, "you have finally come to accept your punishment for letting my prisoner escape." He finished pouring and turned, face chiseled, expression cool. "And how ironic that it seems the arrival of your lover facilitated that. And you've brought our fugitive's failed instructor along as well, I see. Don't pretend you can pass your punishment onto him."

"You're the only one to blame here," Merlin spoke up.

Zeus reacted swiftly, throwing the former wizard up against the wall with a flick of his wrist and then in a flash snapping and crackling bolt of lighting was held against Merlin's throat as the god threatened, "You may be dead, but I can make you suffer worse."

"He's my charge to punish," Neal cut in. "He never did anything directly against you. Or is this one of those instances where your own laws about justice apply to everyone but you and your childish whims?"

Dropping Merlin to the floor, Zeus glared icily at his appointment. "My childish whims? How dare you-"

" _How dare you_!" Emma cut him off. "That lunatic never should have been kept in The Underworld. You should have been paying more attention to the shit he was getting up to when he was alive. And you _manipulated_ Neal, using his goodness, his wanting me to be happy after he died, to trap him here to play jailor to a madman so you could go on having your orgies!

"Well, congratulations!" she seethed. "Now that creep is probably going to destroy all your fun with that stupid magic pen you made up with a bullshit story about special powers and destiny to brainwash mortals into giving you an unbroken line of scribes binding an unbroken line of souls to your chain of immortal amusement parks that's been effectively stripping my people of their free will and keeping them out of Heaven or Hell or whatever there is after these seemingly endlessly entertwined stupid magical worlds!

"So don't you dare threaten either of these men!" Emma shouted angrily, jabbing Zeus in his well-muscled and oiled chest. "You probably even planted The Holy Grail for Merlin to find in some drunken bet with Hades and Ares about death and war! And then when you sobered up you couldn't be bothered to miss your scheduled orgy or banging your sister, or having a rapey three-way with a farm girl and a goat to go and get it so instead of cleaning up your fucking mess before it could become a plague on the magical realms for the next millennium, Nimue's legitimate vengeance killing of a genocidal maniac with your fancy-ass former kegger cup turned her into a lizard-skinned psycho - probably because all you gods are misogynist pricks who think strong women are evil for getting shit done and making you guys look like incompetent fools standing around with your not-as-big-as-you-think dicks swinging in the breeze!"

Emma finished her rant red-faced and with a rather sneering look at Zeus' incesty family jewels, prepared for whatever wrath the mightiest of the gods threw at her.

Instead of zapping her with a lightning bolt, however, Zeus broke into loud gafaws of amusement.

"You have nerve, Emma Swan," he complimented, and directed at Neal.

"I can see why you would sacrifice your afterlife for hers. She has conviction."

"She does," Neal nodded. "It's one of the many things I love about her. But I didn't sacrifice my afterlife for _her_ happiness. You used me to get what you needed."

"The same thing your brother did to Zelena," Emma reminded, arms crossed. "You really want to be a bastard like Hades who used true love to manipulate people into doing shady shit? Because so far that hasn't worked out well for either of you. Your brother got zapped by your vaporizing jizz crystal and now that sorcerer could like... I don't know-"

"Collapse magical realities into a giant blackhole style portal from which no souls can escape to attend my orgy parties?" Zeus continued for her. "Yes, something like that. And I suppose being stuck with my sister-slash-wife having no orgy parties or portals to other realms to engage in bestiality and milkmaid tipping is a less unpleasant notion than ceasing to exist entirely. But why should I care about your grievances when I have dispatched The Furies to hunt down our fugitive? I'm confident they will be successful and everything will return to as it once was. We may even begin repairing all those paradoxes and temporal aberrations created by that stupid witch's spell, which I would think humanity would be grateful for."

Frowning, Emma returned, "Yeah, but not so grateful that we should continue to be your entertainment. A couple thousand years isn't a good enough run? You can't find something else to get your rocks off besides fucking with our lives? Like you did with Neal? With _our son_?

"It's your fault Henry got that damned pen _twice_! It's your fault his father can't even move on to whatever shitty excuse for Heaven you've got here!"

Zeus shrugged. "Very well. If you can find and trap that raging lunatic before my wings of justice, then I will release Baelfire from his oath and allow him to move on to realms _beyond_ my reach. And I will _consider_ transitioning this 'chain of amusement parks' to a less permanent state of being for you lowly mortals. Is that sufficient?"

"Ah... yeah that's-"

Zeus snapped his fingers then and Emma vanished.

Neal glared at the god. "You sent her back!? Just like _that_!?"

"Oh, you wanted to have a sappy good-bye when a madman might be about to murder your son."

"Death is suspended until Thanatos is replaced," Neal reminded.

"Which won't be for much longer," Zeus smirked and turned to Merlin who looked none too thrilled at the implication. "You want to be reunited with _your_ true love, don't you? You'd have the ability to travel into the Realm of Lost Souls, where all those 'released' by Killian Jones were banished by Rumplestiltskin's spell. Perhaps you could even... save her. After all, the more damage your apprentice causes, the more in flux the rules of magic become, especially here. Why not take advantage?"

"You're saying there's a way to save my mother?" Neal interjected. "And all the innocent - or at least not really bad - people your brother threw in there?"

0"Perhaps," shrugged Zeus. "That realm was more Hades' pet project than mine. But if there is a way to undamn those unfairly tossed in, then now would be the time to look for it. As my father used to say, every apocalypse has a silver lining."

* * *

AN: Merlin as the Grim Reaper. Yay? or Nay? Will Neal be able to save his mom and Auntie Em? Will Emma and Anna put their bountyhunter skills to use to bring in The Apprentice so Neal can get a de-luxe apartment in the sky-y-y? And if Merlin's tree let him astral project all over the multiverse, does that mean Dopey was astral-chilling in Tahiti while he was a tree? (The actor who played Dopey actually quit because he had come to hate working for Adam & Eddy and that clusterfuck of a show, which explains why in the Wish AU he was replaced "fuck you" style by Stealthy.)

Next up: Speak now or forever hold your peace...


	13. Scissors of Fate

Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.

Note to Mir: Merlin did create the Dark One and instruct a budding psychopath, so I think he might require some atonement after chilling in that tree for centuries. It angers me that A&E made that wussy guy Zeus! Ah, yes, should have used Dionysus, Greek rather than Roman. I've fixed that. Thanks! Blame Ares misspelling on my shitty spell-check software. As for Stealthy and Dopey, there was no resentment, the actor playing Dopey quit and I assume A&E didn't want less than seven in that scene, so they had Stealthy live and Dopey, presumably, die in his place in their wish universe, which was also more than likely a subtle "fuck you" to the actor for telling them where they could stick it.

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SCISSORS OF FATE

"You have GOT to be kidding me!?" Emma shrieked in aggravation, because not only was she suddenly standing in the middle of Storybrooke's Main Street, but she was once again naked!

And also, she'd appeared three feet from Archie who stumbled and spilled his hot coffee on her tits!

"Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry!" Archie babbled using his tie to clean her up, then apologizing, "That's not appropriate, is it? I'm sorry! I'm just... here!" he pulled off his jacket.

"It's fine," sighed Emma and she used magic to conjured herself in some jeans and a sweater. "I mean, it's a little weird as my kind-of-therapist, but you are gay, so..."

Archie blinked at her. "I... you... what?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. You're single, thin, and neat. You wear tweed and listen to opera. You carry an umbrella and treat your dog like a person. But we can talk about that later. Where's Henry?"

"Presumably at your sister's wedding," sighed Archie. "You just missed the procession."

"Her _what_?" Emma exclaimed, looking around and noticing for the first time that there were flower petals, confetti, horse shit, and an assortment of other trash on Main Street along with fancy floral arrangements on the light posts. "I left _to help my true love pass on_ and that _skank_ moves up the ceremony and throws in a fucking horse and carriage procession!?"

Archie winced. "Yes, well, much as I would like to say she thought she was sparing you the... awkwardness of being in attendance, I suspect she did not want any of your... negativity with regard to her nuptials. I did try to dissuade her, that she would regret not having her sister at her wedding..."

"My sister the Evil Twin with a curse-created black heart feeling regret?" Emma snorted.

"Hence the disinvitation," sighed Archie. "Not that I'm terribly put out with your family's penchant for mayhem."

"Tell me about it," Emma agreed and she tried to teleport, which made her stumble dizzily. "What the-"

"Oh, apparently there is a three block 'no poofing' ward in place along the processional route. Royal wedding security and all what with the 'penchant for mayhem'."

"Naturally," Emma griped and stomped toward the Sheriff's station to get the patrol car.

* * *

Storybrooke's little used church was located on the grounds of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart Convent behind the imposing stone structure and down a gravel path that was, of course, barricaded with a "Wedding in Progress" sign.

Scowling, Emma pulled the patrol car to a stop at the main stairs and then ran past the red Japanese maples up the stairs and through the stone portico that led to a rose garden between the convent and the church.

She did a double take there at an assortment of fancy horse carriages, one a familiar carriage and a familiar horse that she'd left in Central Park but was now festooned in her family's royal livery.

"OH, HELL NO!" Emma growled and pulled open the doors to the chapel. If that bitch had co-opted Geronimo, she would kick her evil ass!

"...speak now or forever hold your - peace," concluded the bishop who'd married Emma's parents in startlement.

Everyone turned, including the couple at the alter and their entourage who were dressed straight out of The Enchanted Forest. Anna was actually wearing their mother's feathery wedding dress - or a replica of it, anyway - with their grandmother's tiara and holding Hook's hands - because he somehow had two of them again.

" _Really_?" Anna harped. "You couldn't let me get married without ruining things? I thought you didn't give a shit! You are so petty!"

"Not everything is about you, Anna!" Emma snapped, walking up the aisle, her focus shifting for a moment to Henry who didn't look especially thrilled to be there in what seemed to be the capacity of Hook's best man. "If you want to marry a criminal asshole, fine! It's your life to screw up! I'm here to keep an undead magical psychopath from sacrificing my son to destroy reality!"

"What!?" sputtered Regina.

"Mom?" Henry startled as she hurried toward him, "what are you talking-"

Suddenly Anna and Hook cried out, grabbing at their left hands and the bishop grabbed Henry, vanishing in a cloud of black smoke.

Naturally, pandemonium erupted, people (who hadn't really wanted to be there in the first place) screaming and fleeing the chapel while the not-quite-married couple continued screeching, trying to pull off their rings which seemed to have been laced with dreamshade from the black spidering going up their veins on their hands.

While Hook pulled the sword at his hip and lopped off his own hand - impulsive idiot as always - David rushed to Anna, using his tie to make a tourniquet and slow the spread of the poison.

"You are such an idiot!" Anna hissed at a bleeding Hook who had Zelena to thank for cauterizing the wound.

Emma was too busy running with Regina into the chapel garden to be bothered with her not-quite-brother-in-law's stupidity.

"What the hell just happened!?" the former Evil Queen who was dressed in a rinestoned purple gown gasped. "The wards are supposed to prevent anyone using magic to enter _or_ exit the entire grounds!"

"Well, if you only designed if for _living_ people then it wouldn't for Merlin's former apprentice," Emma replied, heading back toward the car.

"Wait... _what_?" Regina sputtered.

"He killed The Lord of Death to escape The Underworld, so I assume the usual rules don't apply to him. He plans to unbind Henry from that quill to use for himself, possibly to destroy all magical worlds, because apparently that stupid pen is actually just a way for Zeus to make us all his toys to play with when we die!"

"Well," huffed Regina, "at least I was right that my story was being manipulated to never get a happy ending if all endings lead to that awful place!

"And now we know what that alchemist was up to," she sighed and explained, "We apprehended him a few days ago messing with the ruins in Zelena's barn. We thought we'd prevented whatever it was he'd been attempting, but he seemed quite smug and unconcerned about being caught."

Scowling, Emma reported, "Apparently, my traveling to The Underworld was part of this old creep's escape plan, so obviously he got some minion to split me and Anna and facilitate that séance somehow."

"Well, presumably there's some unbinding ritual involved to prevent the quill from calling to a new Author and that gives us time," Regina reasoned and conjured a map. "We just have to locate him."

"Won't he most likely be at his big-ass mansion?" asked Emma.

"Perhaps," Regina answered and jabbed Emma with a pin for her blood which seeped into the map. "Or his dumpy little house. It has a basement that even Gold couldn't unlock."

"You didn't bother mentioning that before?" Emma groaned while rubbing her wounded hand.

Regina gave her an annoyed look. "You were kind of preoccupied being the Dark One and then bitching about your savior fate getting in the way of baby making with Captain Cuckold!"

"That wasn't me!"

"Yes, well, it didn't cross my mind at two A.M. when _you_ decided to roadtrip!" growled Regina before getting in the patrol car.

"Fine, whatever," Emma snapped, getting in the other side and then asking, "Do I even want to ask about _my_ car? Did you guys just leave it to get towed or did Anna dump it in The Hudson before apparently sailing as fast as possible back here, _with a horse and carriage_ , to get hitched?"

"I believe your car is still aboard the _Jolly Roger_ ," Regina shrugged as Emma peeled out of the lot. "And the horse and carriage was my doing, though your parents did help. Henry wanted his father's horse. It was a simple matter of a staged mugging-slash-horse theft, something your mother was once annoyingly skilled at. The glamour to disguise a stolen horse and carriage to get both aboard the ship was not as easy, but I'm sure it all made for an interesting news story.

"And before you declare a vendetta against your sister and not-quite-brother-in-law for using them," Regina continued, "your parents and Henry rode in that carriage. The baroque monstrosity Anna and Hook used is parked on the side so the groomsman could re-festoon the six white horses with their combined royal family crest."

Well, that did make Emma feel slightly better as she pulled onto the road, though considering how her parents had treated Neal, not that much better. " _Hold on, did you say combined royal family crest_?"

"They went full out with Enchanted Forest tradition," scoffed Regina. "I'm sure you remember that pomp and circumstance from the Wish World."

She did, vaguely. Even if that world only started to exist the moment she was put into it, Emma was given fake memories of a past that included her own royal wedding. And, yes, there was some mess of a royal procession through the kingdom and banners, costumes, and livery even more absurd than when, lacking a brother, she was officially made the heir apparent at the age of thirteen. She could remember her fake parents not particularly liking Baelfire, refusing to give their blessing, lecturing that according to royal decree she could marry whomever she wanted once she reached the age of twenty-five without their permission, but the law was the law to stop impetuous young princes and princesses from making reckless choices in marriage. Of course, she'd dug her heals in on the matter and made her parents' lives rather miserable... until an unplanned pregnancy forced them to give their blessing and plan a royal wedding in a week with the help of the fairies.

"Yeah, well," Emma finally remarked, "I'll be having words with my sister later about what she can do with her royal crest."

Then she floored the gas, off to save her son - _again_.

* * *

The front door of the dumpy little bungalow opened easily with Regina's spell but the door off the kitchen, behind the stairs refused to budge.

Emma tried, using her knowledge of the spells cast by the Dark One on her sister's basement, but all she got was an electric shock for trying.

Then Henry screamed.

Together Emma and Regina threw their magic at the wards, fighting against the painful kickback until finally the door exploded inward and the charged through.

Down bellow Henry was tied to a table and the dirt floor was carved in ruins, ruins the blood from a cut on his arm was dripping toward.

At the first splash the ruins lit up and Henry screamed again, just as The Apprentice brought down the familiar unsavior-ing sheers.

Emma fired her gun but the bullet did nothing, nor did Regina's fireball. The Shears of Destiny plunged into Henry's chest, he screamed again, and there was a bright flash of light and a lot of blood.

Suddenly a massive bird swooped into the room, but turned out to be a winged woman with a sword, swinging at the old man. He vanished with the Shears just before the blade could strike him down.

Emma and Regina rushed to Henry who sat up and gaped wide-eyed, looking his gaping chest wound.

Emma quickly put her hand over the gaping wound and healed it, then pulled Henry into a tight hug.

"H-how am I not dead?" Henry gasped.

"Thanatos was murdered," the bird-woman said, "which means that there is no death until his replacement has been officially appointed and takes possession of this sword."

" _Death_ is actually _dead_?" Regina exclaimed. "And... who the hell are you?"

"I am Alecto, Hand of Retribution, Chief of the Furies, bringers of justice, dispatched by Mt. Olympus to retrieve a fugitive soul that murdered an immortal, summoned demons, and seeks to severe the bonds between all magical realms and the gods reinforced by The Quill of Fate and the golden bindings in The Books which record their stories, which together use the magic of the gods and the power of names to bind the souls of those therein to our world."

"The gods are pretending at being _God_ ," Emma explained to Henry, "using their magic to funnel us all into an afterlife they made for us to entertain them like a theme park, and making sure there's enough unfinished business and drama and cliché bullshit that no one ever wonders _why_ that's where souls go, why it's a bunch of petty, juvenile, pricks in togas who decide if we get to prance in fields or burn in pits of fire after working our shit out. It's all the ultimate long con, Kid."

Henry looked stricken. "So... what he said is true. I was a pawn. I was hurting people, not helping them."

"You were doing what Zeus wanted you to believe was right," Alecto stated. "You were also doing what that wizard wanted you to believe was right, playing into his scheme to free himself and take it from you. But your mother and father struck an accord with Zeus that this arrangement will come to an end, that while The Underworld will remain, there will be no manipulations to hasten the arrival of souls who will move to their rightful place, and Elyssium and Tartarus will return to being a retreat for the gods and a prison for the Titans.

"But this must be undone carefully by Zeus and the other gods, not in the manner The Apprentice intends, an apocalypse that risks destroying not simply this town but all worlds connected to through the axis mundi of Mt. Olympus... which has been tied rather tightly to this town after that mess with the Dark Ones. He will use it as a means to access and break the barriers between the worlds. If he succeeds, he may bring down Mt. Olympus itself. But for that he will need a power source. As _luck_ would have it, this little town has one uniquely attached to it. Rather benign in the form Rumplestiltskin funneled it into after his centuries of collecting portal objects and using alchemy to combine them into a cage of sorts for the Dark Curse. But with all of its recasting and augmentations since and the introduction of magic here beyond it's own power source that has allowed for many more haphazardly conjured portals, that cage has been weakened significantly."

Regina inhaled sharply. "He's going to turn the Dark Curse back into an untapped source of raw dark magical power... and then unleash to all the other worlds. What kind of madman is willing to destroy hundreds, perhaps thousands of worlds just to spite the gods?"

"You were willing to destroy a large portion of your world to live in a fake happy ending where you were akin to a god," Alecto reminded. "Revenge spawns a particular madness. And he has been spiraling into it far longer than you. Clearly he wishes to be free of the gods, even if that freedom for himself and everyone is ceasing to exist.

"Which is why I must reconvene with my sisters," the demi-goddess stated. "He has vanished from this realm, no doubt to obtain the ingredients he first needed that quill to locate. There are secrets - and _magic_ \- beyond the silly stories about your people hidden in the pages of those books."

Alecto left the sword on the table and told them, "This will bind his soul, but be warned, to wield it with your bare hand and takea life, your soul will be bound to its service, making you Lady of Death. Use it only if there is no other choice, for Zeus would very much appreciate the irony after freeing your lover from his own servitude only to bind you to his will."

Alecto vanished in silvery mist then, leaving the three of them alone in the basement, Henry looking particularly dejected at the revelations.

Regina placed a hand on his shoulder and assured, "You didn't know, Henry. None of us did. But it will be over once we catch this bastard. Everyone will be free."

"Or wiped completely from existence if we're not fast enough," Emma reminded.

"Yes, or that," sighed Regina and she picked up the sword in her gloved hand. "I presume this means the reception dinner is being relocated from that awful Italian place to Granny's at least, so that's something."

* * *

Everyone had gathered at the diner, including Hook who now had his hook back on and was looking in dismay at his now poisoned hand in Gold's old jar and Anna who had a flask of the potion Rumplestiltskin had made for David after Neverland and a rather large blood stain on her wedding dress.

When Emma finished her explanation, everyone was floored. And worried.

" _Neal_ is Lord of The Underworld?" Hook goggled. " _Neal_? But he's so... _nice_ and _boring_!"

"And got your ungrateful ass resurrected by agreeing to the deal, you one-handed waste of space!" Emma snapped.

"Oi! Too soon!" Hook whined, holding his arm dejectedly.

"So, basically," David restated while adjusting a tassel on his maroon and silver brocade suit, "we have to apprehend this madman before he destroys our existence. No pressure."

"And he can really do that with the... power source for the Dark Curse?" asked Snow, stuffed rather uncomfortably into a booth in her ostentatious gown.

"Theoretically, yes," grimaced Rumplestiltskin who wore his usual suit because he'd refused to attend the nuptials of two individuals he loathed.. "In its original form it's simply a black orb the size of... an apple. It took centuries to design the magical equivalent of an algorithm that would harness its power, bind and shape it in a way that was transformative rather than destructive. But that goddess is correct. Since it has been recast several times, the laws I wrote into it degrading and changing with each iteration, it will increasingly _want_ to return to its natural state as all matter does."

"And what exactly was that?" David wanted to know.

"The product of blood alchemy," sighed Belle who had attended the wedding in her yellow gown, because for better or worse she'd formed friendships with the morally bankrupt duplicate of a princess and a pathological narcissist of a pirate who'd tried to kill her more than once. "That was the real reason behind the first Orge War, why Ogres were unleashed from their exile."

"Indeed," confirmed Rumplestiltskin.. "The Duke of the Frontlands, using Zoso as his personal sorcerer, harnessed and concentrated the darkest of magic through the slaughter of innocent children. The Duke intended to use it to magically incinerate millions of people and assume control over the entire world. I cannot say that I regret killing him."

"So... you spent centuries turning a bomb into a transporter," Emma surmised. "And this guy is going to use this quill, the shears, and some other divinely created magical objects to tear apart the last of the bindings that are keeping it in some kind of... dormant magical power source for unlimited portal making and make portals instead to unleash all of its concentrated power and obliterate worlds?"

"Not the most theoretically accurate description, but essentially, yes."

"How do we stop him?" Anna asked. "I mean, what if we can't destroy these books or get the quill back or whatever other magical doohikies he's collecting to cancel out the silver slipper glitter and unicorn queefs you shoved into it before he sets things in motion?"

"The Dark Curse in its current form does have one fail-safe, one last bit of magical containment that is not so easy to break as 'sliver slipper glitter and unicorn queefs'."

"True love," realized Regina. "That's why you had to wait so long, why even you couldn't fully manipulate the events that led to Emma's conception. You needed as pure a child of true love as you could get as the final check on the Curse."

"To keep it from simply destroying us when you cast it, yes," Rumplestiltskin nodded. "Emma's inclusion was as much to allow the Dark Curse to transport us here at all as it was to free me one day so I could find my son. Only a savior created by the most powerful of true love, that shared between soulmates, could tame such raw darkness from a force of utter destruction to... merely the quasi-destruction of our kingdoms and reformation into this quaint little hamlet. And that is why Emma remains a savior even though she broke the parameters of the Dark Curse for which she was _actively_ required. Essentially, her existence is required to maintain Storybrooke's integrity. But as the Doomsday Crystal proved, her existence is not a guarantee. Other means can be used to tear it apart."

"And us in the process unless we can stop it or find a way out of here," Zelena interjected.

"To where?" Belle objected. "Any place linked here by a portal would lead to that place's destruction as well. The only real option would be the world outside of Storybrooke."

Zelena harumphed and crossed her arms, muttering, "I'd rather cease to exist."

"Not to mention," Regina pointed out, "the moment this town ceases to exist, anyone on the outside would lose their memories of it... and presumably of any magical world also destroyed. It _may_ be possible to reinstate the fake memories that came with the curse and bind that to the magic of this world like with the memories I gave Henry and Emma before, but there's a fair number of people here now that never had curse memories. And we presumably have very little time."

"Can't we just get our hands on this... orb thing?" asked Hook. "Make sure Merlin's ex-lacky can't alter it?"

"No, we can't," Regina groaned, " _The town_ is the curse. He simply has to get control over it, and while Pan and Snow did that by _casting the curse_ through a sacrifice, there is no death presently and this madman has magical objects created by gods that he can use to alter those requirements anyway."

"The Laws of Magic are currently somewhat... maliable," explained Rumplestiltskin.

"So, we use that to our advantage," argued Emma. "Can that alchemist give us any answers? Maybe even be swayed to our side?"

"Unlikely," Regina grunted, "but if you want to speak to him, he's in the Asylum.

"I will go to my vault," she continued. "While the actual paper incantation was destroyed after Pan's casting, there are remnants that might be useful protections... or perhaps augmented to allow at least some to leave town without suffering complete amnesia , if it comes to that."

"You said I can destroy the books," Anna spoke up. "I should start with that, right? I mean, if we can't capture this guy it won't mean anything, but if we do, then it means we're free. And if that means one less bit of magical bullshit telling me who I am, then I'm all for it."

"I'll go too," nodded Henry. "I want to help free the people I accidentally trapped."

"And maybe we can make use of the bindings first before destroying them," Belle interjected. "Would we be able to trap him with them?"

"It's a possibility," nodded Rumplestiltskin. "Anna may be able to pull the gold thread free so it could be used for other purposes. Then it would be a simple matter of using water from the River of Fire to destroy all residual magic in the books from the ink and quill."

"Simple if you have water from the River of Fire," Hook pointed out. "Or did you steal a vial after shoving Milah in the River of Lost Souls?"

"Don't pretend you still care about my late wife," Rumplestiltskin spat. "And no, I wasn't. But _someone_ ," he turned a cool glare at Zelena, "was."

The former Wicked Witch shrugged and sigh. "Fine, yes, I have samples that Hades gave me. I'm fairly certain that alchemist broke into my storm cellar looking for it. But I'm not foolish enough to keep in the most obvious place like _my sister_ does with all of her magical knickknacks."

Regina glared and Zelena smirked and scoffed, "Oh, you're still mad?"

"Of course I'm still mad! You dosed me with a lust potion!"

Zelena scoffed. "I'm _sorry_. I told you, it's when I was with Hades and-"

"And you didn't bother to mention anything after you weren't!"

"I hardly saw the point. You got split and your less inhibited side went and ruined the prank, and it's not like you were ever going to act on it after that."

"Enough arguing," Emma spoke up, not really following what that was about, but not having the time to care.. "Zelena, you go and get your fire water. Belle, Gold, Henry, and Anna will get the books and try to disassemble them while Regina gets any protections that will help the town in case we can't capture this guy and tie him up with, ah, magical book bindings."

"I suppose," David considered, "Snow and I should warn the towns people. If people want to attempt to leave, they should have that right. But we'll let them know Regina is working on a way to ensure they have memories, even if it's just their curse memories."

"I'll help with that," Hook offered.. "Sure to be a lot of panic even if this should be old hat by now."

Emma watched everyone head out then took a moment to just _breath_ before she too stood up and made her way outside into the rather chilly night, surprised to find her sister sitting alone on the front bench.

"I thought you'd be annoying Gold on the drive up the hill" Emma remarked.

"They're going to bring everything to the Library," shrugged Anna, "and Gold _is_ the Dark One, so my presence isn't really required for book transport."

"I guess that's true," Emma agreed and took a seat beside her sister who was holding her engagement and wedding rings. "Having second thoughts about marrying Captain Codfish?"

Anna threw her a sour look. "No. I just don't feel like wearing rings that nearly took my arm off."

Emma sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "What do you want, Anna?"

"I wanted to talk."

"About what? Accusing me of interrupting your wedding to spite you? Or that you're motivation to try and contact Neal was in the hopes that you'd get rid of me long enough to have your wedding without poor pathetic Savior Emma killing the mood? Cause you don't get credit for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons."

"And you think I'd invite you when you called my relationship abusive crap?"

"Oh, spare me, Anna," Emma groaned. "You're not the victim here because I constantly pestered you into doing good things. I'm the one that constantly had to fight against your inclinations to do _bad_ things. To be selfish. To be a jerk who doesn't care about others. _I'm the one who gave up my son_."

Anna looked mildly stricken and argued, "I said I was sorry for messing up your happiness."

"No, you didn't actually," Emma shot back. "You made a lot of sarcastic quips and accused me of being jealous."

"Yeah, well, maybe, but if it wasn't for this jerk, _Emma_ , you wouldn't have made it through the first half of your 'story' without ending up as damaged as I am by this blood curse if you survived at all," Anna pointed out. "You needed my nastiness and ambition to get out of that situation by any means necessary. And I'm not sorry that losing your magic made you lose your grip and I got to sit in the driver's seat and play Savior. You were doing a half-assed job of it. You didn't want to accept all the responsibility even _before_ it came with a prophesied death sentence. You wanted to run back to a normal life without magic and storybook characters!"

Emma sighed. "Maybe that's all true, but I get to be mad, Anna! _I'm_ the one that actually has the savior destiny crap and I'm not nasty or ambitious. You can look at that now with your unfiltered, apathetic perspective and leave me with the emotional meltdown. You can marry your true love and have a happy ending, but me? Even if I used those stupid shears, I'm never going to get the life I could have had, Dark Curse or not, if you never existed - and there wasn't genie magic involved to make it some badly ironic lesson on not basing your life on wishes. And _you_ might have liked the person _we_ were - actually liked instead of just more than that simpering princess - but we weren't going back to _my_ life, so that stupid wish world with you sabotaging me actually getting true love is as close as I've gotten since that fucking motel room in Portland."

Anna threw her arms in the air. "You're seriously going to blame that stupid wish world on me? It didn't even make sense! It had a completely different history that didn't even add up, because apparently our family never got blood-cursed so I didn't exist or you'd be dead not being saved by your savior magic and that geezer's spell. But I still had to technically exist since you were inserted into that world instead of being created by it. So, yeah I fucked up you getting everything you wished for. And maybe my liking being a _jerk_ more than a simpering idiot and wanting to get back to _my_ true love is what got us out of that lie as much as you not wanting your actual kid to find out your fake-ass version of him murdered his other mother - though don't even try to pretend you liked that version of _us_."

Emma's shoulders slumped and she sighed. "Fine, maybe that doesn't count. But how can I not be pissed off that I got the shitty journey and then you come along and get the happily ever after? You even got to create a shared memory with our parents, entwine your love story with theirs. I _had_ a story that was kind of similar to theirs until you changed it, so now I've got nothing to relate to them with. I've got nothing to prove to them in any way that seems to matter to them or anyone in this world that my love, my life, in this world was as meaningful and true as all the fairy tale crap that came before or after. That just _ceased to exist because of you_."

"Oh, yeah," scoffed Anna, "losing a _story_ is a great sacrifice. I lost our parents love and affection, their _trust_ , Emma. When they thought I was you, I could do no wrong, but the moment I'm a cursed version of you? I'll always be inferior. I'll always be the evil sister."

Shrugging, she concluded, "Killian's the only one who doesn't look at me like a ticking time bomb."

Emma raised a brow and asked, "Is that why you were so quick to get hitched? Because he's the only one you think wants you around?"

"No," Anna defended. "And I'm not with him because he's my only option or because I don't think I can do better or deserve better, which I know is what you're thinking. That's how _you_ interpreted it when you were part of that weird mental ménage à trois. That he was an asshole, but he worshiped you and it was your job to give everyone their happy ending, so if you were his, you could find a way to make that work. But that's you, not me."

Emma frowned, realizing that was true. It wasn't the right way to look at things now. But it had made sense _then_. Her life had been so hard, filled with so much pain after Portland that she'd closed herself off to loving again. It hadn't helped that both when her mother's (or then roommate's) encouragement and whatever Regina had put in her memory spell to give Henry a good life allowed her to feel hopeful again, that those she opened her heart for were quickly snatched away. Or that when she started dating Hook a year after leaving Storybrooke, it was after a year of being brainwashed into still thinking that Neal had never loved her (one part of Regina's spell she couldn't be grateful for), only to see Neal and yet another man she loved (however foolishly) die.

So when Neal died, when Walsh was killed by Zelena too Emma had reasoned that she wasn't meant to have that kind of happy ending. Or Anna had reasoned? Or the both of them. That was still a bit confusing sometimes. But it came down to trying to reconcile two contradictory sets of emotions by believing it made sense to throw herself into loving a man who couldn't be a good man without her returning his feelings - and who would never ever leave her if he depended on her that much and had grown that addicted to being seen as a hero. It wasn't healthy, obviously, and _she_ had known that while _Anna_ hadn't cared. But _she_ was the Savior and that meant making sure everyone else had a happy ending, and so she'd given in to codependency kicked in and she allowed herself to become Stepford Swan. It wasn't even about loving the one she was with, it was about loving the one that was left.

At least, that's how Emma had been looking at since getting her independence back. But that wasn't here. And it wasn't even completely Anna, either. It was the two of them engaged in a tug-of-war, and even if Anna usually had the upper hand, the emotional mess that her sister had become during the progression of her relationship with Hook was probably in large part due to Emma either fighting it or making up rather pathetic justifications for it that conflicted with her sister's actual love for Hook... if a part of her actually was capable of that.

"I guess I haven't been entirely fair to you," Emma finally conceded. "It's hard to... separate out my point of view sometimes."

"Well, being a sort of sociopath helps with not getting attached to pointless crap," shrugged Anna. "And being okay with manipulating Mom and Dad into a big-ass wedding. I figured it was best to strike hot on the guilt before they realized that by law, since I was created by a curse, I'm basically even less an official family member than your bastard kid."

Emma frowned at her calling Henry a bastard but she couldn't exactly argue against that.

"I'm sorry Mom and Dad are so judegy," Emma told her. "I think you're a jerk, yeah, and I don't like you a lot of the time, but I don't think how you were made makes you any less family. You're still my sister."

Anna smiled a little at that. "Thanks, I think."

"Sure," Emma laughed a little and toyed absently with her necklace, drawing her sister's attention.

"I did kind of wonder what happened to that, you know," Anna gestured to the keychain. "If it somehow ended up in your box, but I never did look."

"Because I was afraid it wouldn't be," sighed Emma. "And afraid if it wasn't, no one would really care."

Anna shrugged. "So what if they don't? I mean, look at this ring," she said of the one she still wore around her neck, not her engagement/wedding rings. "Finding out its origin makes everyone else think it's a creepy murder trophy that an asshole gave to his gullible kid brother as he was kicking it, a death he had coming as the price for sacrificing all those innocent men to get a magical jewel to get a naval commission. And, okay, maybe that is what it is, technically, but I choose to see it for what we both believed it was, because that meant something to us, and that's the one pure thing he owned, that he gave it to me when I was the Dark One to remind me of the good person I was under that curse.

"And, okay," Anna continued, "I know that I wasn't ever a good person. But Killian hasn't been in three hundred years either. Which doesn't mean we don't want to pretend that we can be. Pretending can keep you sane. And the princess pretend was nice while it lasted, having your magic and being a savior with everyone's unwavering love and support, but now I am what I am and you are what you, and I guess we have to make the most of that," she concluded with something of a resigned expression.

"I suppose we do," Emma agreed.

Shaking her head, Anna told her, "Look, Emma, whether you believe it or not, I am sorry that anything I caused you to lose made you angry and bitter, think you were the loser all those foster parents said so you were unable to see true love when you tackled it in an ally. I never got your thing with Neal, but I'm sorry if any part of me is the reason you weren't able to save him. I know things would have been different for us then, but you could've been happy and then one day maybe I'd have been free to go make the day of a very dejected pirate drinking himself to death, and you'd have been free of me to _really_ find your Tallahassee. And then you wouldn't have to be so sad on what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life."

"But we can't change that," sighed Emma.

Anna grimaced. "No, we can't. And it sucks. We're not so entirely different. We're just... forced by crappy circumstances to be envious of what the other has. That's what I meant. I like to be liked, to be important and adventurous. Be a princess. You'd rather be standing in the background, rather have the ordinary things that regular people have without titles and costumes. We got stuck with the wrong roles, and there's nothing we can do about that."

"Yeah, we just have to make the best of it," Emma agreed and told her sister, "I'm not unhappy for you and... Killian. As your sister, I want to be happy for you, but... as The Savior... I'm supposed to stand up for people who were wronged, I'm supposed to bring the villains of the stories to justice, and maybe he's the hero of your story, but he's the villain in a lot of others, including my true love's."

"I guess I can see that," Anna exhaled.

"I am sorry your wedding got ruined, though," Emma told her. "Especially the, ah, hand thing. I mean, since now it's..."

"Irreversibly necrotic?" Anna finished for her. "To be honest, it was me who spiked our rings."

Emma's jaw fell open. "You... what... _why_?"

"Well, first, I love Killian, but he has _terrible_ taste in jewelry. I mean, I couldn't say 'no' when he proposed with that diamond monstrosity, but having to wear that massive thing for the rest of my life? Hell no! And _you_ like silver but _I_ like gold. I suppose he assumed based on your earrings and keychain that you were a silver kind of girl or more likely he just wanted to plagiarize Mom and Dad some more-"

"Like you never did that?"

"Fine, whatever, maybe. But just because I love _this_ ring," she aid the not-really-sapphire, "because it has some deeper meaning, doesn't mean I want to wear a silver monstrosity."

"So instead of saying something you _poisoned_ your rings _at your wedding_?"

"Well, our family's weddings need dark magic drama, right? Seemed only right. And we'd have been actually married by the time it kicked in if you hadn't interrupted the ceremony!"

"Again with the you don't plagiarize?"

"Shut up!" Anna huffed. "It was short notice. I wanted a good, properly dramatic family story while I'm still a part of it. Maybe I didn't entirely think it through. But the truth is, I like the hook better anyway, so it all worked out."

"Accept for Hook."

"Meh. He'll whine about it for a few days, call me names, then I'll make it up to him in lots of kinky ways and he'll forgive me."

"You two really are messed up."

Anna sighed deeply. "Fine. Whatever. I don't want to argue about that anymore when we could be obliterated from existence shortly. I just want to be happy that I got to know what it was like to be truly loved, whether I can truly feel that without left over bits and pieces of you or not. You got to actually feel that, all on your own, and it was all yours and Neal's. So even if I can't really get that, no matter what crap Mom and Dad shovel at you, I know you were happy, Emma, and that the good and bad stuff in your life means more to you than just who it made you as a savior. It's your story and that matters, whether it's written down or not."

"I suppose you're right," Emma conceded with a tight smile.

"Are we cool then?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "Yeah, Anna, we're cool."

Anna straightened up and insisted, "Great, so let's destroy all this fake-ass divine crap so more people don't get screwed over, win the war we didn't even know we were in, and kick that old geezer's wrinkled undead ass so I can get married!"

"Yeah, all right," Emma agreed, standing as well. "But first, you really need to change out of that dress. It looks like you brutally murdered a swan and pulled on its bloody carcass."

* * *

AN: If you've watched _The Crown_ , particularly episode 8, I see Emma and Anna's dynamic much like Elizabeth and Margaret. Each is envious of the other, Anna like Margaret wanting the spotlight and Emma like Elizabeth preferring the sidelines, but by the fate of their birth, each is stuck envying the role the other was given. They are sisters who love each other, but are so contrastly overwhelmed and embittered by the unfairness of destiny that they can't seem to find common ground. It's obviously disappointing for them both, each wanting the support and understanding of the other (Margaret/Anna especially wanting her sister's approval of her romantic relationship, however unorthodox for a princess, and Elizabeth/Emma wanting her sister to respect her duty to their people over her personal desires) but unable to quite make the compromises necessary for sisterly affection to overcome their differing philosophies on honor, justice, and the role of The Crown.

Some credit to violetfaust for various posts on tumblr about Emma's terrible justifications for her relationship with Hook. This chapter mentions the Wish Universe, that fucking mess! As for its logistics, A&E said in an interview that the entire history of the wish universe is different even preceding the curse. Adam also said it is now a really real place. Jane Espenson, however, quick to rather (surprisingly) angrily tweet that Adam was essentially talking out of his ass in those interviews and it's not remotely real. So which is true? I won't delve into whether Wish World was vaporized out of existence after we have to presume Aladdin is un-genied or if it still exists and Henry is underage knocking up Lady Violet in a rape flower field in Camelot. (Knowing A&E, it's probably the later just so they can revisit that farce if necessary and have Hook go drinking with his older self or something.)

"You don't get credit for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons." —Jessica Jones


	14. A Strange Love or: How I Learned to Stop

**NEW NOTE (EDIT): The first chapter of 'Heathens', a companion piece to this story, is now up to read and review! Wouldn't you rather read about Neal and Merlin having an adventure than that CaptainCharming bromance rubbish on the show? I know I would! WizardFire all the way!**

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 **Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.**

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 **Note: This writer was feeling lazy as fuck and decided to skip right to the end instead of trying to bullshit through magical MacGuffin plot devices.**

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 **HAPPY HANUKKAH** **, MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND A BELATED WONDERFUL FESTIVUS FOR THE REST OF US!**

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A STRANGE LOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE DARK CURSE BOMB

In retrospect, Emma should have put off talking with her sister until _after_ interrogating their alchemist. By the time she reached the Asylum, the poor sap was being sucked into a familiar hat in the hands of The Apprentice.

"Perhaps you'd like to join my friend?" the old man inquired.

"Perhaps you'd like a ticket back to The Underworld," Emma shot back, gathering magic in her hands.

She had hoped to avoid a one-on-one confrontation. This guy was obviously dangerous, powerful, and almost certainly insane enough to have his own cell down here. But Emma at least expected her attack to have _some_ impact. Instead, like attacking Jekyll, the sorcerer barely flinched. And even _more_ insulting, he _laughed_.

"Saviors," he scoffed while putting his hat upon his head. "To whom so much is given, and in whom so much hope is placed, but yet they're always such fools. You think you're some sort of savant when your gift just _turns on_ , but you're just a magical savage, no training, no understanding, no control. Have you even learned one single spell or is throwing raw magic around the extent of your tricks?"

"Throwing raw magic around has knocked a lot of bastards like you on their asses!" Emma hissed, and she tried to gather her magic together again, but before she could complete it, the old man had his shriveled weird wand at her throat.

"Perhaps it was your sister doing the learning then. Rather a waste, don't you think? Weeks wandering around her mind with all those Dark Ones, and _that_ is the best you can do? You couldn't even take the opportunity for some tutoring and I suppose she just let them do all the heavy lifting, channel their knowledge for trapping memories and ripping out hearts rather than take the time to actually learn how to do it all on her own. Six weeks with a phantasm of the most learned of the Dark Ones, and this is all you've got? I actually had hoped choosing you to succeed Rumplestiltskin would lead to a bit more of a challenge. But you're just pathetic, aren't you?"

Sadly, she was. Emma's lessons had been all of a few days with Regina which had been mostly to rely on her instincts and her willpower more than any book, because she was, honestly, a crap student with books and Regina realized quickly that she was more action than academics and they didn't have time to change that. Then it was Anna who had all the power and then some, and Emma had wanted no part of the Dark Ones' whisperings even if she couldn't help but absorb a few things while Anna _had_ just let their experience guide her rather than learning the techniques.

"Why are you doing this?" Emma demanded as the wood dug into her neck. "You're willing to sacrifice thousands, perhaps millions of lives just to spite the gods?"

"When life and death are nothing but prisons, nonexistence is the only escape," The Apprentice reasoned before vanishing in a swirl of black smoke.

* * *

All the details pertaining to how they reached the climax of Storybrooke's worst fiasco wasn't terribly important. They had, at least, unbound the books, sequestering the other realms and had apprehended The Apprentice, but he'd still managed to set things in motion to revert the Dark Curse.

Much like had happened with the Doomsday Crystal, the trees that had been transported back to The Enchanted Forest to make room for Storybrooke began exploding through the pavement and buildings while at the same time the town's infrastructure just started unraveling, everything put there by magic rather than acquired from the outside world disintegrating like piles of salt in a rain storm..

The road out of town became a massive bloody car wreck and half the Cannery's fleet of lobster boats began to sink from freak waves as the currents and tides reversed, their occupants doomed no matter whether or not Hook and Anna were able to rescue them aboard the _Jolly Roger._ That was before the cars and ships created by magic began to themselves unravel.

Regina had tried to cast her spell to solidify people's cursed memories, but by then there was no longer magic separate from the Dark Curse itself, the magic of the Land _Without_ Magic pushed aside, trapping them in a void.

When magic had been siphoned away, like the Crystal, that had felt like a weird numbness, a change in air pressure. But _this_ was painful. To Emma it physically felt like something was being ripped out of her, surgically removed by a sadist with a scalpel and no anesthesia. She knew what it was, of course. It was her connection to the Dark Curse, her bond that Rumplestiltskin had coded into it when he poured that potion on the written spell. Perhaps it's what the Shears of Destiny felt like, though Emma imagined that was a more temperate and choreographed separation, getting stabbed in the heart by a psycho aside, than this agony. And there wasn't time or reason to ask Henry as in the sky above a black orb was forming in much the way the Dark One had swarmed itself around its new host, spinning more and more rapidly - but also condensing into a solid thing that when it had finished destroying everything it made would finally fulfill its original purpose and lay waste to everything left.

Emma could already imagine the government claiming it was an exploding comet or something. There would be nothing but shattered, charred trees scattered like popsicle sticks, all living things incinerated. It was no wonder The Duke of The Frontlands was so feared and hated. If he'd succeeded, the history of The Enchanted Forest would have been _very_ different. That didn't matter, though. Soon there would be no future in that world for the people here.

"We failed," Snow wept, holding her husband where the faux historic "Welcome to Storybrooke" sign used to stand but was now just a few old moss-covered cobbles.

"We kept the other worlds safe," David stoically reminded. "That counts for something."

"Well, at least we won't exist much longer to feel the disappointment," mused Regina with an arm around Henry and then turned to Emma.

"You should take Henry, see if you can still make it out. You won't have your memories, but you'll _exist_."

Emma swallowed thickly. Deja vu all over again. But different.

Looking at her son, Emma saw as she always did his father in his warm brown eyes and she hoped capturing that old asshole meant the deal still stood... assuming they'd at least protected Mt. Olympus against the impending magical mega-bomb. Even if they did, she had no idea what would happen to everyone here, if their souls would move on or just... be obliterated like they never existed, like none of it had mattered.

Then Emma had a thought, possibly absurd, possibly pointless, but she had to try. So she took Henry by the shoulders and told him, "If this doesn't work, you leave."

To Regina she demanded, "You make sure he leaves."

"Mom, what-"

There was no time. Emma ran to grab the reigns of the horse that Henry had tied to a tree. They'd had to ride here when the town's local roads got swallowed up by forest and all but a few cars disappeared. The other horses had all spooked and galloped off, Regina even getting thrown before they'd reached the clearing. Apparently, compared to Manhattan traffic, getting sideswiped by cyclic and pelted with bottles by drunk homeless people, an apocalypse was no big deal for the seasoned carriage horse.

Emma had never properly learned how to ride. She supposed Geronimo hadn't done any riding of that sort either in a very long time, but she found her barrings and he galloped in the direction she urged, toward the old toll bridge and from there up the ridgeline's trail, past the old campground where the Flynn's had set up their tent that fateful night and found themselves trapped inside a storybook nightmare.

And from there Emma reached the wishing well, quickly dismounting.

"Love is more powerful than magic," she recited, yanking the chain from around her neck, thinking of the first time she did magic. No spell. No training. .Just _love_ and the deep desire to protect those she held dear in her heart.

Emma clutched the small bit of tin tightly in her hand and remembered what it felt like to be truly loved and love so deeply in return. She focused on her love for Henry, for parents, even her sister and Regina - and on Neal, a love that burned with pain. Love lost could be a more powerful love than any other. It could corrupt a heart, turning it black and destroy worlds. Or it could stop that destruction and heal, and it was on the later that Emma concentrated and reached deep into her heart and the strange magic her parents and her destiny had created.

When the burn grew so great that it felt like her heart might spontaneously combust and turn to ash in her chest and her hand glowed so brightly her bones stood out like an x-ray, Emma unclenched her first and watched the small, brilliantly lit piece of tin fall into the dark depths of the well.

* * *

Regina stood ready to shove Henry over the town line if need be when not unlike the triggering of her sister's time portal, a sudden, massive pillar of brilliant light erupted from behind the trees, up into the sky, and right at the orb.

It struck with a deafening crack and the shock wave of rainbow light that followed knocked over everyone not already moaning on the ground from their injuries as it rippled through the town, vanishing the trees, repairing the buildings, healing those wounds incurred in the destruction.

Where moments ago Regina and Henry had been standing amongst bloodied townsfolk and bits and pieces of their cars and luggage - presumably parts that had come on the train over the years - everyone was now without a scratch and their cars... well... back on the road with the scratches they had from three decades of use.

"She did it!" Henry exclaimed. "Mom saved us!"

Indeed, it seemed that Emma had.

* * *

Out in the harbor the turbulent sea went calm and the sinking, fragmenting boats were restored allowing Anna, Hook, and the few others who'd joined them aboard the _Jolly Roger_ to cast off life preserves and haul them in.

A swish of Tinkerbell's wand observed that magic had been returned as well, which helped in the rescue considerably.

"You have to admit," Hook said after a self-congratulatory swig from his flask, "playing the hero does feel good, aye, luv?"

"It does," Anna agreed and took her own gulp, giving her almost-husband a considering look.

"What? Not terribly upset that ripply rainbow light didn't restore my hand, are you?"

Anna shook her head, wondering if she should admit...? No. She wasn't keen on being _that_ reformed. "I was just thinking. I mean... you felt that. I know it's not the first time I've experienced the whole true love ripply rainbow light thing, but..."

"Aye," Hook nodded. "T'was a bit different than breaking a run-of-the-mill sleeping curse or a memory block. Or it's the one doing the breaking. Belle mentioned once, about how when Emma broke the Curse originally by waking Henry, when she finally believed in what and who she was and that magic was real, that it felt far more powerful than any since."

"She is The Savior," Anna mused. "I suppose that should be a given. She was created by true love. She should feel it more deeply, manifest it more powerfully."

"And you're worried you can't channel the magic of true love without your sister playing parasitic twin?" Hook asked.

"I don't know," Anna shrugged. "I'm the product of a curse. But I don't want my life defined by that. I don't want to end up like my uncle, blaming my twin for my not being the child our parents wanted and compensating for that by hurting others. Or just plain batshit crazy like Zelena. And I'd rather not be seen my whole life as the physical manifestation of affliction upon my family's bloodline."

Hook eyed his true love and deduced. "You want to find a cure. I can't imagine that's easy or it would've been discovered centuries ago and this Evil Twin thing known of only in history books."

Anna tipped her head. "When have you ever backed down from a challenge? You spent centuries hell-bent on taking down the Dark One. You pursued relentlessly even when given no indication that your salty seduction was having any effect. And if Emma can stop an apocalypse, this shouldn't be that hard in comparison. If anything, I owe it to my nephew, at least. If Henry hadn't gotten Emma here, I'd never have my own life."

"Aye, I suppose I also owe the lad for that. But to be fair, _you_ gave some indications," Hook argued, "through your sister's frosty refusals and then gave in without resistance once she'd been subverted."

"Well, okay, that's true," Anna conceded. "But my point is, I'm going on a quest to rid my family of this curse. I might not be able to make myself into someone else. I am what I am. I don't there's much changing that, curse or no curse at this point, but I can make sure no future souls stuck with this family have the added burden of being fucked up by dark magic before birth," she declared. "So are you in or are you out?"

"If I say I'm in," Hook inquired, "does that mean the odds improve for another generation of Joneses?"

Anna rolled her eyes but smiled. "If I say 'maybe' do the odds improve for you putting that flask away and loading up with enough supplies for a lengthy and not entirely sex filled honeymoon?"

"We're still not technically married, luv."

The sea suddenly began to boil off the starboard bow and though they prepared for a krakan or some other sea beast, it was actually the _Nautilus_ surfacing.

The hatch opened and Captain Nemo emerged, remarking, "A mermaid brought me a wedding invitation. I think she also stole my forks. Are we too late? And where can I purchase more forks?"

* * *

Merlin's former Apprentice was none too happy, bound up on the floor like a caterpillar in a cocoon in the middle of the Library with Zelena pointing his own wand at him. He was less happy when three birdlike women appeared, the leader taking the golden sword from Belle's daintily gloved hand.

"Oh, how those bindings must burn," Alecto taunted the sorcerer. "You'll be pleased to know that there is a new Lord of Death ready to take this sword and strike you down. I do think he will truly enjoy it."

"Let's go for a ride, old man," one of the Furies hissed and lifted him up with her sister, carrying him to the elevator.

Instead of opening to a car, it opened to a glowing portal which they stepped through just as the rest of Henry's family minus Emma, Anna, and Hook entered the Library.

Ignoring them, Gold demanded of the chief Furry, "I know Emma made a deal to free my son from his servitude. I assume her side has been met."

Alecto inclined her head. "It has. He is no longer Lord of The Underworld. And as you all are now free to live your lives as just that, without strings attached to please the gods with your stories, The Underworld will become merely a way station for souls to pass on beyond Zeus' reach when they are ready. Which does not mean my sisters and I will not punish any who tamper with the realm of the gods or seek to use magic not of mortal worlds."

"Of course," Gold allowed. "We all still have jobs to do, even if we are not playing roles on the stage your creators built."

"Indeed, and mine is not quite done here."

Alecto turned to Zelena, moving her blade lighting fast to the former Wicked Witch's throat and holding it there as she hissed, "Every mortal woman who beds a god thinks above her station. Had I the full powers imbued by this blade, I would cleave off your silly red head and plant it on spike outside the Halls of Justice to remind those being judged what befalls bitches who think they can become gods.

"Instead..." She retracted the sword, dropped it to her side, then thrust it forward in lightning swift motion, imbedding the golden blade in Zelena's abdomen.

Everyone gasped, including Zelena, but instead of blood or guts when Alecto pulled it free, there were tendrils of green light and the redhead wailed and clutched at her abdomen, the light seeping through her fingers until the last wisps were sucked into the sword and her shrieking subsided.

"What... what did you do to me!?"

"I exacted justice for those you have wronged. I have taken away, _permanently this time_ , the thing that makes you special: your magic, and the thing that makes you happy: your child."

"You... erased my daughter from existence!?" Zelena shrieked.

"That girl was a time aberration," Alecto stated, "created as a result of actions undertaken in the past that should not have been. Time is sacred and it can't be changed to suit any one person's desires without causing harm to the lives of countless others."

"That's not fair!" Zelena wailed. "I love her!"

"You are incapable of love," Alecto challenged her. "You are, tragic as it may be, the result of a curse upon your despicable father's line and he perpetuated his wretchedness with you. You have shown little inclination to attempt to better yourself for anything but the pettiest of reasons, so the gods have only pity for you and that is why your life is being spared for your mortal family to with as they see fit."

Zelena wailed inconsolably on the floor and Snow considered, "Must you be that cruel? She couldn't help that she was created that way. And Emma... Anna did the best she could to repair her mistake."

Alecto eyed Snow White with a cool expression and told her, "You do your mother's unearned legacy no favors when you mistake charity for justice. Favoring evil choices because of the magic that created her is not without the capacity to know the difference. It makes the dark, which always feels good, enticing, but it does not completely block out the light. She chose the dark again and again. It was from the dark that the child was conceived and had magic not sought to birth a light child to contain darkness she should have ceased to exist by virtue of her twin. But neither was meant to exist. Marian was dead in the past. To use her likeness to entice a man into siring a child is not merely rape of an unconscionable sort that merits punishment, but any child thus sired is a temporal aberration.

"And those can add up to paradoxes of the most infuriating sort," Alecto explained. "For instance, Killian Jones falling drunkenly in lust with a blonde temptress he did not know was from the future, thus enticing his past self to alter his reason for ferrying your family to Neverland from penance for wronging Henry's father to the desire to bed his mother due to what he perceived as nothing more than a recurring dream for decades until it became a message from The Fates that she was his one true love. Yet the dream was not recurring at all for that one time was actually the first time it happened. A paradox of lust and love. Some would say that he seduced her. Yet it was she who entrapped him. Due to this paradox, both and neither are true. Harmless, perhaps, outside of their romance, but other paradoxes are not so benign.

"And those threaten the stability of this universe," continued Alecto, "however altered and unoriginal it has become from what it once was and should have become. Too much has occurred to repair it all, but some can be removed and certain damages repaired, like the child that wasn't meant to be, a soul ripped by that paradox from the life it was meant for in order to be the offspring of a mad rapist."

To the crying redhead, Alecto stated, "By giving up your child, you give her soul a better chance at happiness. Let accepting this be your good deed, if you are capable of any."

Alecto proceeded toward the elevator, amending, "I would caution you that after the sun sets, you do not seek to travel to other realms and keep others from attempting to visit while the gods repair the holes in the tapestry of time and space to a state from whence opening a portal does not cause a dozen others break open and rain down odd people in steam-powered dirigibles or bury your town in a sand storm. True love has dissipated The Darkness back to its natural, harmless state. There is balance. But it is new and there is work to be done to bring about the changes Zeus agreed upon, the freedom you have won. Do not let your reckless mortality jeopardize this gift as your kind are wont to do."

"We won't," Belle promised.

"I have a question!" Henry suddenly blurted out. "Was that you that attacked us by the lake for trying to save Robin?"

"Ah, yes, I'd almost forgotten..."

"Eeeeep!" Henry exclaimed when Alecto transformed into a hideous black scaly creature with demonic wings, bug-like eyes, and really absurdly large breasts for no discernible reason.

Alecto shifted back, shrugging, "Mortals are far more willing to quake in terror before the hideous than the beautiful. Also, men - and some women - are quite easily distracted by ridiculously large breasts. Makes it much easier to apprehend them."

Regina snorted at that.

"I'd best depart," Alecto announced.

"Wait," Henry stopped the demi-goddess again. "My dad. Can you... can you tell him that I love him? That I miss him. And... I'll take care of Mom... And Geronimo."

"I will," Alecto confirmed before stepping into the portal that instantly closed up, leaving the empty elevator car.

"So..." Belle asked, "who wants burgers?"

"I could eat," nodded David.

"I'm starving, actually," agreed Snow.

"Can I get a hot fudge sundae?" Henry asked Regina.

"Averting an apocalypse does seem to warrant sundaes."

"I HATE YOU ALL!" Zelena wailed, sniffed, and put in rather pathetically, "I suppose I wouldn't object to some apple pie and ice cream."

* * *

Anna found her sister not far from where Geronimo was munching on weeds, sitting on the swing set in the little used park that Regina had built after tearing down Henry's castle. The genie-lamp inspired slide had play horses had rusted and been taken over by vines.

Emma was swaying back and forth with rusty squeaks, clutching a stack of yellowed paper, her expression set in that numb mask Anna knew well was the brittle calm before a breakdown.

A big part of Anna wanted to just leave her sister there. Like 99.9% of her. She wasn't good at this 'caring' thing. It literally wasn't in her nature, a nature created _not_ by nature but an insidious spell some asshole - she had her money on Neal's grandmother - invented and got spread around by greedy shit mortals who liked to fuck a lot. In a sense, Anna was only slightly more real in her origin than people made from a magic quill or a genie's spell, just because the magic triggered what a quirk of nature would otherwise... just with the caveat that the magic remained, ensuring that bunch of cells developed _wrong_ , developed with a broken moral compass from a pre-blackened heart. And that darkness fought against the absorbing of any light, the seeking of redemption for past wrongs and happiness that came from love rather than the pain of others.

It was not a particularly fun existence, and Anna could understand how it had driven Zelena to become such a crazy, fucked-in-the-head cunt. She'd killed her twin before birth without even knowing it, though it seemed that her mother had and tossed her out like trash, perhaps hoping the Black Fairy would take her to at least put her magical psychosis to some use rather than wolves tearing her to shreds. Anna had been spared that, and by ad hoc accounts, it seemed that her uncle wasn't particularly happy even as a wealthy prince, so perhaps missing out on a life of her own for thirty years and having to share a past with the sister she would have killed in the womb without destiny and a spell was really the best fate she could have asked for. And while Anna doubted that Emma would agree at the moment, maybe it was the best fate _she_ could have asked for too.

Emma didn't look up as Anna approached and took a seat in the other swing, just kept staring at the top sheet, a pencil and ink sketch of her first date with Neal, the two of them sitting on that Italian trapeze. Anna had those memories, hazy and disconnected as they were for her, bits and pieces of Emma's life that had been emotional highs and lows, that resonated with the little patch of light her sister had protected in her heart for all those years and Anna had spent the last few days torn between wanting to let the darkness swallow it and fighting the darkness back.

"I'm sorry you had to sacrifice your keychain," Anna finally broke the silence, getting a surprised look from Emma. "What? I'm observant. And Belle did say once it had the ability to travel between worlds because of the true love by which it was given and received, no matter what it came to represent between then and Neal giving it back to you. And, besides, as a way to save this world and the world of the gods from destruction, makes sense to use something connecting souls in those two places."

"We're all still alive and Neal gets to move on, that's what matters," Emma answered with a shrug and flipped through the drawings, some of them fanciful ones of the life they could have had.

"And no one can question anymore that your love was true," Anna pointed out. "That it _still_ is. It stopped an apocalypse. Pretty sure people will write that down. Either way, Emma, you both loved each other, and you've still got that in your heart, with or without some cheap piece of tin."

"Somehow that makes it hurt even more," Emma admitted, fighting tears. "Turns out I hadn't accepted it fully how much I loved Neal, no matter how much I thought that I had. There was still a part of me that was holding back, that was afraid, because I knew it would hurt to lose him again. I think that's really why, even in that wish world, he was dead. Because it wouldn't be real, and I knew deep down that I'd always take a nightmare that's real over a dream that's a lie. Still, it would have been nice to at least know we could have had Tallahassee.," she concluded with a sob, finally losing the battle against her grief.

Terrible as she was at this sort of thing, Anna slipped an arm around her sister, the rusty swings squeaking in protest. Emma cried for a long time, finally pulled away when her eyes were red and her nose running.

"Here," Anna offered her a wad of tissues as Emma pushed her glasses up to wipe at her eyes.

"Thanks," Emma sniffled. "I'm sorry I messed up your jacket."

"I did buy it with your money, so, no big deal," Anna quipped.

"Right," Emma snorted after blowing her nose.

"You don't need a genie to know that, Emma," Anna insisted. "Or a book. Or even that keychain. This town still being here, everyone getting the chance now to write their own stories, fight to make their wishes come true, that's how you know your love could have done anything... even if that anything was something ordinary and boring like raising a nosey kid in a dumpy apartment in a swampy city that's actually not right by the beach."

Emma smiled at her. "Thank you."

After a short silence, Anna cleared her throat and began again, "I know I appear strong, but I'm not. And don't tell me you understand, because you can't. You don't know what it is to be... unhinged, to be.. flailing about. Killian's the only one who can hold me together. And maybe that's not the kind of true love that fairy tales are written about. It doesn't save thousands of lives and it can't break a terrible curse and rebalance reality, but it saves mine every day. His love for me, it gives me a reason to keep fighting against my own darkness, the darkness that made me, to hold onto that little bit of goodness that's there because of you, that let's me feel something I shouldn't be capable of."

Letting out a breath, she concluded, "So, I know you don't like Killian, and you probably never will. But I wouldn't have him without you, so it would mean... a lot if my sister would be there, in about an hour, when Nemo, hopefully, officially, barring any kraken, hydra, and giant squid attacks or mermaid rebellions, gets us hitched aboard the _Jolly Roger_."

Sniffing a bit still, Emma responded, "You're right, I probably won't ever like him. But also that I can't fully understand what it's like to be you. I guess we really can't fully understand each other. But you are my sister, and it doesn't change that I love you, and that, of course, I will be there to see you get your happy ending... and then sail off and leave me alone to deal with this crazy town of freaks and their old world laws," she amended at the end with a slight smirk.

"So, change the laws," shrugged Anna. "Maybe there's some kind of middle ground between letting everyone get away with anything with a slap on the wrist and a few hours of community service and locking all the murderers and crazies under the hospital. Well, personally, I wouldn't change locking up the crazies. But otherwise? Who knows what'll work best. This town's not dependent on a curse anymore thanks to you, so seems like a chance to try some new things. Even if you're not a savior anymore."

Emma blinked at that. It hadn't even occurred to her. She didn't feel any different. But if there was no longer any part of the Dark Curse left, if Storybrooke was just a town that had some unusual magic in it from another land, then did that really mean she was normal? Or as normal as the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming who had magic could be?

Instead, Emma asked her sister, "Are you saying that you're not going to contest my claim as Sheriff?"

Anna shrugged again and replied, "The bountyhunter thing was more my style. Kicking ass, taking names, breaking so many rules it's basically illegal in most of the country. Just bad enough to suit my taste without the risk of jail time. Joining a sheriff's department? That was _all_ you. Well, maybe a little bit me in upping the odds of bedding Graham, but the actual job part without sexual benefits, that was you. You're the good cop. I'm the bad cop, but the corrupt one that gets busted by Internal Affairs for abusing criminals and taking bribes kind."

"Well," mused Emma, "there goes my speech."

"You had a speech?"

"Yeah, I worked on it in New York.."

"Don't let the hard work go to waste. Lay it on me."

"I don't know..."

"You think I can't take it?" Anna snorted.

Emma rolled her eyes, then put on a lecturing tone, "You owe me for what you've done to my reputation in this town, Anna. So I demand you hand over _my_ badge and resign immediately! I can overlook the constant absences, the blatant disregard for rules and regulations, but your moral compass is broken and I point blank refuse to work with someone whose sense of right and wrong is as flippant as the weather! Someone who thinks _getting laid_ is more important than justice. You are unfit to be Sheriff. You have _no place_ in law enforcement!"

"Flippant?"

"That might have been Henry's suggestion."

"Well, that certainly was blunt in its cruelty," Anna told her with a snort.

"Sorry."

"No you're not."

"Yeah, you're right," Emma conceded. "I haven't changed my mind about any of that. You're my sister and I love you, but you're a shitty cop."

Anna smirked at that and handed over the badge to Emma. " _Was_ a shitty cop. Now I'm just a pissed off bride planning to take a _six month_ honeymoon cruise. Of course, that's assuming I can actually get married. Twenty bucks said Dad gets wasted before the ceremony."

"I'm not dumb enough to take that bet, Anna," Emma snorted.

"Fifty bucks says he threatens Nemo with his sword and tries to get him to walk the plank before the end of the reception then," shrugged Anna and Emma groaned.

"Fine, it's a bet."

* * *

A much smaller wedding party in a mix of fairy tale and regular clothes gathered on the docks just before sunset, fresh off fighting evil for the umpteenth time.

"At least I don't have to be Hook's best man again," groaned Henry.

Emma smirked at that and nodded toward the _Nautilus_. "Ever gonna explain that little adventure, Kid?"

"Other than that I had a chance to let Hook die and chickened out because I thought you wanted to marry him? Not really," he sighed.

Slipping an arm around her son, Emma told him, "Well, heroes don't let people die just because they don't like them. And you don't have to worry about him throwing out your Pop-Tarts anymore."

"Yeah, the boiled mackerel was _nasty_. He's still annoying, though. And kind of useless."

"Well, your aunt thinks he's useful for something..."

"Yeah, I know what 'something'. I walked in on them once!"

"Ah, right, forgot about that," Emma grimaced. "I mostly blocked out all of... ah... that."

"I wish I could!"

Someone on board rang a bell to welcome the guests aboard and as everyone began filing up the steps Henry asked, "Do you think... if Dad hadn't died you two would have... you know... gotten married?"

"I don't know," Emma answered honestly. "It was losing your dad that made me realize how much I loved him still. I want to believe we'd have found our way back together, even if my aunt and her lady boner for Hook got in the way for awhile. But I don't know if we'd have gone the traditional route. It wouldn't have changed how we felt about each other, though. Or you."

"I wish I could have seen Dad," Henry moped, "talked to him one more time."

"I know," Emma grimaced. "I'm so sorry I didn't let you see him when we got here from New York, Henry. I was afraid. I didn't know how to explain that he wasn't the guy I'd thought he was without my memories, that I made you think he was. I was being selfish. And I'll regret that for the rest of my life. I made a lot of decisions out of fear that hurt you. And then my sister made a ton more that I couldn't stop. And I know all of that has left you with more on your plate than any kid your age should be dealing with."

"One less now, though," Henry reminded. "It was kind of a sucky destiny sometimes, but it made me special, you know? And now I can't add Dad's story," he moped. "Or how you met. Not that I'd want to anyway, since apparently all I've been doing is magically enslaving people or something."

"Hey, that's not your fault," Emma insisted. "You didn't know that. No one did. And we don't need to be in a magical book, Henry. Who says you can't write it down without a fancy quill? The pages are still there even if they're just ordinary words and pictures now. And you definitely don't need some magic destiny to be special. Believe me, they're overrated. You were an amazing kid long before you picked up that quill, and you'll continue to do amazing things long after it, Henry."

"You really think I'm amazing?" Henry asked with a suspicious look and his mother smiled.

"Yeah, Kid, you are. You have more hope than anyone I've met. You got me here to break that crazy Curse. And you can be whatever you set your heart and mind to. Which I know is all your dad wants. For you to never limit yourself, never give up. So don't let yourself get boxed in by any world," Emma advised. "By anyone's expectations. Or people saying you need fancy powers or titles to be important to someone or to do good in the world. What matters is that you feel good doing good, helping people who can't fight the good fight alone, taking down bad people who don't care who they hurt; not that it's written down or comes with medals and fancy titles. It's about what you do, the stuff you learn along the way, not blindly focusing on some happy ending. I know it might not feel that way around here sometimes, not the way this family tends to prioritize stuff," she amended, "but that's what really matters. Okay?"

"Okay," Henry agreed, still a little sad, then asked, "So... are you gonna get a house now or what? I know Aunt Anna wants you to watch her place, but I don't want to stay there with you. It's creepy."

"I'm not planning to live-in house sit, that's for sure with all the 'good for something' stains that would make a black light explode," Emma assured. "I don't know where I'll call home yet. But we'll figure it out."

"Maybe we could even have a stable in the backyard for Geronimo?"

"Maybe you should petition Regina for that, Kid. I don't want to end up mucking stalls!"

The bride and groom appeared then looking suspiciously unkempt. Emma warned her sister, "You'd better not have been having a _Titanic_ moment in my car or this wedding will be followed very shortly by a funeral. It cost a fortune to get The Bug professionally cleaned in Manhattan to get your stank out!"

"Our stank?" Hook scoffed. "Have you any idea the cost of getting your horse's stank out of my cabin?"

He threw a sour look at Henry, "And don't pretend it wasn't you who let the mangy thing out of the hold!"

Anna rolled her eyes and tugged him over toward Nemo while Emma raised a brow at Henry.

"Wasn't me. I swear. He's just a really smart and devious horse."

Emma bit back a laugh. "Still not getting a house with a stable, Kid."

"Was worth a shot."

"All right, everyone!" Nemo announced. "Let's get these nuptials completed so the happy couple can sail off into the... ah... sunset apparently. Don't seem to be where I remember it last. Anyway, then I can get back to finding the klepto mermaid who stole my ship's tableware before the father of the bride stabs me to death!"

* * *

The ceremony was short and Emma watched from the docks as her sister sailed off into the sunset... and then got swallowed up by a portal along with the _Nautilus_.

"The sun is going to go back to rising and setting where it's supposed to, right?" wondered Snow. "Not that it isn't very pretty..."

"Things should begin to return to normalcy by morning," Gold interjected, leaning on his cane as he limped over from the boardwalk, the magic he'd used to heal his old injury undone by The Apprentice's handiwork. "Though I imagine it will take a few days for everything to be completely so as the gods do their meddling."

"Whatever normal is around here," David mused. "Not sure we've seen that yet."

"Let's get this over with," Regina spoke up, "before some idiots finds some magic beans or enchanted unicorn dung or Ariel shows up with an enchanted spork."

Together, Emma, Regina, and Gold, combined their magic toward the setting mirror sun. The different colors combined to a shimmering white that briefly made the water glow and struck the barrier around Storybrooke, rippling through the town.

"It won't hold forever," Regina concluded, "but that should keep visitors out for awhile. We just need to make sure no stupid dwarfs try to _leave_ to get PhDs and destabilize things."

"I'll talk to them after the town hall meeting tonight just to impress the point," David assured. "And put up security cameras at the town line. Probably should have done that awhile ago."

"We'd better head back into town then. I'm sure there's a mob gathering to bombard us with questions," Regina said, leading everyone away from the water.

Emma was last. She watched the unnatural sun set and the stars come out, not sure if they were reversed to, but sure Neal would be able to tell her. She wondered if there were stars where he was now, if the sun would rise in the morning - if there was even morning. As long as he was at peace, his soul free after so many years of imprisonment, a life so full of misery and pain, then she supposed it didn't matter.

She'd felt his love for her in that final moment, when existence had been near its end, felt that he was happy, and for that moment she'd shared that happiness with him, one blissful moment when reality was everything it could be and nothing it had been, when even, maybe, she could have reshaped it with their love into the life they both wished had been.

But that wouldn't have restored the balance that was so long missing. It would have been selfish, even if they both deserved it. So she'd let Neal and that dream go, even though she would hold onto that moment of pure joy and love until she saw him again.

"I hope you've found home, Baelfire," Emma told the dark sky, blowing a kiss to the stars before turning to head back toward town and resume her role as Sheriff Swan, bringer of justice to the town of Storybrooke, Maine.

\- End Part 1 -

* * *

 **NEW NOTE (EDIT): The first chapter of 'Heathens', a companion piece to this story, is now up to read and review! Wouldn't you rather read about Neal and Merlin having an adventure than that CaptainCharming bromance rubbish on the show? I know I would! WizardFire all the way!**

* * *

AN:Alecto borrows "time aberrations" from _Legends of Tomorrow_ along with some dialogue. I was sorely tempted to have her kill Zelena, but since Merlin hadn't yet fully assumed the role of Death, it just wouldn't work plotwise, so I had her wipe Baby Robin out of existence and take her magic instead. _Oops!_ Emma's "speech" is from _The Flash_. And Anna's spiel about being "unhinged" is taken from Princess Margaret's words to her sister Elizabeth in _The Crown_ Episode 10. Bits of this and their previous conversation in Chapter 13 were inspired by Episode 8 and the overall relationship between the two royal sisters and their personalities (to some degree) as portrayed on the Netflix show. Elizabeth, like Emma, has a leadership responsibility that her sister envies while she envies her sister having what she perceives as a confidence in her won skin, charm, and wit that she lacks, that gains people's adoration for her as a person rather than reverence for her duty and what she represents. She's actually quite insecure and always feels at a disadvantage in her duty because her parents gave her no academic education, so she struggles to understand and converse with members of government on top of having to reconcile being daughter/wife/sister with being Queen, something her uncle, the abdicated King Edward VIII, likens to mythological creatures like minotaurs and sphinx that are part human/part monster and ever at war with themselves; I see Emma in her savior status similar to this, always picking duty even if she hates that she has to do it and that it may hurt the ones she loves. (And that in canon instances when Emma did such things, it was Emma's strength and conviction as a savior that over-powered her sister's selfish and individualistic nature). Elizabeth has also long been troubled that her parents called her their "pride" and Margaret their "joy" and it seems somewhat common knowledge in the family that Margaret was their father's favorite, no matter what their mother might claim, which just seems to reinforce Elizabeth's insecurities at being valued for what she can do, not who she is regardless of titles and duties. Anna, like Margaret, sees her sister as unsympathetic to her situation as the sister without any duty but still bound by its expectations and regulations, particularly in her love life; she is devastated when Elizabeth breaks a sisterly promise to support her marriage and as Queen declares that she must choose between duty to the Crown or love, the later which will be disinheritance and (at least temporary) exile like their uncle, simply because her lover is divorced. The difference here, of course, is that while Elizabeth seems to be heading down a path that further disconnects her from her individual self and her family, her own marriage in a rocky place because she did not side with her sister, I wanted Emma to be at a place where, like at the end of Season 1, she was essentially free of her savior status and back to a place where being Storybrooke's protector is a choice rather than inescapable burden, the absence of which means cutting out a part of and diminishing herself. Frankly, I think the show's choice in that regard is just one of the many choices in plot that have worsened Emma as a character, turned her into a plot device rather than a character with conviction and morals that chooses to be a hero because it's the right thing, not because it's demanded or expected of by some unseen hand of fate. So eliminating the Dark Curse and solidifying Storybrooke was a way to un-savior Emma by her fulfilling her duty rather than chickening out of it. And creating Anna, of course, was a way to MacGuffin out of all the atrocious choices the canon character has made since Season 3 both in present and flashbacks.

Other borrowed dialogue in this chapter:

"I'll take a nightmare that's real over a dream that's a lie." — Sara choose reality over getting her dead sister back using time travel and mystical bullshit, _Legends of Tomorrow_

"You can't just go back and change things like that. Time is sacred and it can't be changed to suit any one person's desires without causing harm to the lives of countless others." —Sara faces off with Merlin over a mystical amulet compass MacGuffin, _Legends of Tomorrow_

"I can overlook the constant absences, the blatant disregard for rules and regulations, but your moral compass is broken, my friend. I point blank refuse to work with someone whose sense of right and wrong is as flippant as the weather. Someone who thinks _friendship_ is more important than justice. You are unfit to be a CSI. Barry Allen has _no place_ in law enforcement." —Julian, _The Flash_


End file.
